Thousands of students from different colleges and universities on Wednesday walked out of their classes to call on the Aquino administration to stop the continuing tuition and other fee increases.
Most of the students who took part in the nationwide protest action were from Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Sta. Mesa; University of the Philippines in Manila and Diliman, and the University of Sto. Tomas in Sampaloc.
Protest actions were also held at the UP Baguio in Baguio City, Colon Street in Cebu City, UP Los Baños in Laguna, and the Commission on Higher Education Regional Office in Davao City.
Militant youth group Anakbayan lambasted President Benigno Aquino for allowing tuition rates to increase by more than double during his six-year reign, with tuition rates more than doubling from P30,000-P50,000 a year in 2010 to P60,000-P100,000 in 2015.
“Next school year over 400 universities and colleges nationwide will again increase tuition and other fees. Under Aquino, Philippine education has become more commercialized,” said Anakbayan chairman Vencer Crisostomo.
He said the annual profits of the country’s leading universities have also doubled, with the Far Eastern University, the University of the East, Centro Escolar University, and STI College even making it to the Top 1,000 corporations in 2015.
Anakbayan, along with hundreds of youth organizations under the Rise for Education Alliance and Kabataan Partylist, is pressing the Aquino administration to issue an executive order stopping tuition and other fee increases and the commercialization of education.
Student leaders denounced the Commission on Higher Education for stating that it is the right of universities and colleges to raise tuition.
They also called for the junking of all “Other School Fees” which are not only exorbitant but also redundant given the collection of tuition.
Anakbayan demanded the ending of the education deregulation policy through the immediate scrapping of the Education Act of 1982 which allows universities and colleges to set their own tuition rates without any government regulation.
“The Aquino government always say that nothing can be done to stop tuition hikes and the commercialization of education. What we are proposing is just and doable,” said Crisostomo.
Another big campus walkout would be held on March 11, the third year anniversary of the death of University of the Philippines student Kristel Tejada who took to her own life after being forced to stop schooling after failing to pay her tuition.
