Fighting for education rights in the Philippines

March 15, 2000
Issue 

On February 14 in Manila, 3000 students participated in a rally against education funding cuts and tuition fee increases. It was the biggest student rally in three years.

The budget for state universities for the year 2000 has been cut by 700 million pesos (about A$29 million). The government argues that this will force the universities to provide education of a quality sufficient to compete with private colleges (obviously by charging "competitive" fees).

The University of the Philippines (UP) has been cut by P155 million. The government says that the UP is a university of the elite and that it shouldn't subsidise the education of the wealthy. However, a statement from the office of UP president Francisco Nemenzo points out, "Our multimillionaire student community only amounts to 3.1% of the total student population".

Progressibo, the newspaper of the Socialist Party of Labor in the Philippines, spoke to Gerry Arances, chairperson of the League of Socialist Youth, and Rhodz Espinola, a long-term student activist from UP.

Arances said: "The government is using UP to justify further cuts. All this is leading to their grand 'free market' goal of privatising the education system. The budget cuts will lead to an increase in tuition fees.

"It is currently proposing a 10% increase in fees in all state colleges and universities in the next school year. At Laguna State Politechnical College, the administration is proposing a 100% increase.

"The 'free marketeers' in government argue that tuition fee increases will lead to quality education and students who are better skilled to compete in the job market. In 1998, less than 50% of those who graduated couldn't find suitable work.

"According to the Philippines constitution education should not be used to generate profit, so private colleges describe themselves as non-stock and non-profit. This is bullshit. They run like private corporations. A section of the Philippine capitalist class is getting very wealthy through the education 'industry'."

Espinola told Progressibo: "Education shouldn't be a commodity. It should be a social responsibility. But over the last few years many students have started to believe the propaganda that we should pay.

"We need to counter this. We need to launch a mass information campaign explaining the issues to the students. We also need to expose the massive profits made by the private colleges — profits that go into the pockets of the rich."

Espinola said that this information is hard to get. "We must demand that students and parents have the right to know the financial status of these colleges, that the college administrations open their books."

Arances argues, "In order to do that we need to exert mass pressure. The challenge is how to build a mass student movement around demands such as: no to the cuts and increase the education budget; no to tuition fee increases; free education for all, at all levels.

"A movement that can win these demands has to involve a majority of students. This means not just as warm bodies, but actively deciding on the demands and line of march of the movement.

"The Mexican students established open, democratic student strike and campaign committees which provided the leadership and involved student activists. The French students did the same thing — and they won their demands."

To contact or subscribe to Progressibo, e-mail <reihana@csi.com.ph> or write to Room 403 JIAO Building, 2 Rimog Ave, cnr Quezon Ave, QC, Philippines. Subscriptions are A$30 for 12 issues, or A$50 for 24 issues.

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