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PRIVILEGE SPEECH By Representative Salvador Belaro, Jr. 1-Ang Edukasyon Party-list
February 5, 2018
(Prepared speech. Please check against delivery)

It is one of life’s ironies that the clearest of thinking happens in times of crisis. That is so as when we are down, it is also best time for hindsight and foresight, analysis and assessment, evaluation and prescription.

In the past few months, the education sector, and more specifically, the Commission on Higher Education or CHED, witnessed a crisis in leadership as shown by the resignation of former Chairman Patricia Licuanan, and then just last week of Director Mark Yee.

There are more to these developments than what appears. Much much more.

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

My dear colleagues, I stand here before you today as a proud member of the  most responsive Congress in recent history, in enacting life-changing legislations. In the field of education, this Congress did that with two game-changers - the Free College Education Law and the Free Wifi in Public Places Law, thanks to our beloved Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez who has the rightful mix of will and vision, our Majority Leader Rodolfo Farinas who makes things happen, the entire House leadership,  our very pro-active Chairmen of Higher and Technical Education Ann Hofer, of Communications and Information Technology Victor Yap and of Appropriations, Karlo Nograles, my fellow co-authors of said bills and to all of you my dear colleagues for passing these legislations that will never be forgotten. In fact, they are revolutionary legislations.They are revolutionary because they will change the Philippine educational landscape. With free college education, the perennial problem of access to education will now shift to ensuring quality education, and as far as the state is concerned, that college education will be responsive to national developmental goals. They will change the way we teach because with free internet, a lot of traditional school tasks will be rendered obsolete – our books, our classrooms and our teaching methods have become borderless. They will change the way we teach because with internet, distance will no longer be a hindrance to access to education. Even the physical submission of reports from provincial to national offices is rendered unnecessary as they can now be made online. These developments should rightfully define the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte as that which has revolutionized Philippine education and the 17th Congress as the legislature which made that possible.

This afternoon, I wish to discuss three educational concerns that require urgent attention if we are to consummate the revolution in education that we started.

The first is CHED’s lacking a graduate tracer study. What is a tracer study? Simply put, it refers to the data on the accomplishments of CHED relating in particular to the employability of its graduates. It is an index of performance of any agency, which measures efficiency and accountability of the funds given to an agency vis-a-vis its goals. Such study would answer the questions that matter such as “What happened to our college graduates, say two years after graduation or after a defined time frame?, “Were they employed?”, “If yes, were they employed in jobs related to their college courses”? During the last budget hearing, this representation called the attention of CHED on this and in fairness to them, I was assured that they will attend to the matter. How soon it will be attended to, I am not sure.

At this juncture of our national history where we just instituted various legislative reforms in education, the significance of such tracer study is paramount. For one, with respect to the Free College Education Law, the success of such law would be dependent on a proper diagnosis of how college education fared in the Philippines in the previous years, especially in providing employment to our citizens. We need evidence and hard facts to substantiate the policies that will be instituted by CHED. This representation most respectfully submits that the determination of courses that will be shouldered by the state under the Free College Education Law should prescind from real data and correct analysis of the data emanating from such tracer study. Otherwise, we will be witnessing the Free College Education Law metamorphosing into an avenue for massive wastage of public funds and inefficient allocation of government resources.

Such tracer study is also important as it should affect policies that will be formulated with respect to the other significant legislation in recent history - the law providing for K-12. There is no doubt of its good intentions – that it will make Philippine educational standards at par with the rest of the world in this era of globalization and ASEAN integration and that it will result to K-12 graduates who are already capable of being absorbed by the labor market. Two years after its full implementation, we as a nation still need to be fully apprised of where it is going.

Then, there is the curious case of TESDA, the agency tasked by law with, among others, the  development of technicians, middle level and para professionals in the country. While it appears to be effective in job-generation, it is most respectfully submitted that the programs of TESDA would be optimized, if it would be done in coordination with the policies of both the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education. All the three agencies are tasked with a certain aspect of our educational system, and in view of the aforementioned developments, it is now more than ever, that they need to talk to each other to synchronize our country’s policies on education. That way, the three of them could altogether achieve gains which will be more than the summation of all the achievements of each of the three agencies taken all together.

The second problem that I wish CHED would focus its attention is the equally urgent need to computerize and create an online portal for its records and to update its Management Information System. I will give you a specific example ladies and gentlemen. If you call CHED now to ask whether a certain school is fake or not. There is a chance you will not get a correct answer. This is so as the records of CHED in this regard are not updated, and not comprehensive, especially with respect to schools which are just undergoing the accreditation process. Now, let us imagine that all such basic data relating to schools, their students, graduates, faculty and course offerings could be made available online. It will be a whole new world. Fake diplomas. Fake schools. Fake credentials – these would be things of the past. The same will happen if we can transport online the status of scholarship and teaching applications.That would mean a lot of savings and would also prevent corruption. Now more than ever, CHED should urgently address this problem in view of the approval of the Free Wifi in Public Places Act. As the law is now about to be implemented,  CHED should already roll out the necessary preparations that would make its services in sync with the internet.

The third is the inordinate delay in the  release of scholarship funds. It is public knowledge that payment to the scholars of various grants takes at least a year, if you are lucky; more than that if not. In this regard, the latest victims are the more than 9,500 teachers-scholars who are affected by the onset  of our Senior High School program. When asked about this, then Chairman Licuanan told us that the Scholarship Division of CHED is lacking in personnel. To the mind of this representation, being a former recipient of government scholarship funds which enabled him to finish his college studies at the University of the Philippines, that is an answer which betrayed the former CHED Chairman’s lack of a heart for the scholars. In fact, that was a very insensitive answer. Scholarship funds are given to those who need them and that there is a time frame for responding for their needs. Such answer smacks of callousness to such time-bound necessity. Scholarship funds cannot be late since if delay would be allowed, the scholars would go hungry and left at the mercy of forces beyond their control. The tragedy of Kristel Tejada, the UP student who committed suicide, for not getting a scholarship, is an example of such vulnerability to uncontrollable forces. In this regard, please allow this representation to mention that he is also the author of the House Resolution that seeks to investigate the P2Billion scholarship fund of CHED. While CHED explained later that the said fund was already downloaded to the regions, albeit very belatedly, it is my belief that such delay is unforgivable and should no longer be repeated. In view of this, it may be about time that this august body prevent the occurrence of such unforgivable delays by making it a criminal offense to delay without just cause the release of such scholarship funds or to at least impose penalties for such delay. In this regard, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act may appropriately be amended to include such delay as one of the punishable offenses under such Act.

While a crisis shows the worst, it also brings out the best in possibilities. This is exactly the message of the crisis in leadership at the CHED. It brought to the fore the pressing problems it confront and needs to confront, as well as their urgency and need for resolution.

My dear colleagues, these developments in the field of education also conveys to us a message for a call to action, to exercise our job of congressional oversight and to exercise our plenary duty to institute legislative reforms.

Indeed, it is high time for a congressional investigation in aid of legislation to inquire whether a reorganization of the existing Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education and the Technical Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) is in order, as to whether these agencies of the government be merged into a single entity akin to their monolithic predecessor – the Department of Education, Culture and Sports.

Thus, immediately after this privilege speech, this representation is filing a resolution calling for an investigation in aid of legislation as to the propriety of merging the said three agencies into one and/or the amendment of the existing CHED Charter, R.A. 7722, so that said law could be made attuned to the need for synchronization of the country’s educational policies in view of the implementation of the K to 12 program, the Free College Education Law, and the ASEAN Integration, among others. In this regard, special mention on the possible provisions of the law to be amended is Sec. 5 of RA 7722 which confers upon the Commissioners of the CHED a fixed term when all their counterparts at the DepEd and TESDA serve at the pleasure of the President.

Indeed, one of the good things a crisis does is that it pushes all of us to critical thinking. In turn, critical thinking leads to purposive doing, a sure indicator that indeed, change is coming.

My dear colleagues, with the fervent hope that we shall continue to dispense of our role as agents of change, I wish to thank all of you again for lending me this afternoon, not only your ears but hopefully, your heart and brains. Long live Philippine education! Long live the 17th Congress. Long live the Philippines!

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