‘Free education’ excludes students from MP towns where congressman lost

BY GINA DIZON

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- The much touted “free education” espoused during the recent May elections by congressman-elect Victor Dominguez is not true after all for students of Mountain Province State Polytechnique College.

Not even for all students who come from Mt. Province enrolled in this college.

In the solon’s May 20 memorandum directed to MPSPC president Nieves Dacyon, Dominguez told Dacyon that students from identified three towns of Sagada, Sabangan and Besao and selected barangays of Bauko, Bontoc and Tadian are excluded from the school’s free education program.

Free education covers free tuition and miscellaneous fees.

Dacyon immediately instructed her staff the day after, to implement the memorandum from Dominguez, reiterating the solon’s instruction that “those who are entitled to full scholarship shall be able to present a certification from the office of the congressman”.

Identified barangays are Otukan Norte, Bila, Bagnen Proper and Bagnen Oriente of Bauko; Alab Proper,Alab Oriente, Balili and Bayyo of Bontoc ; and barangays Lubon, Poblacion, Batayan, and Masla of Tadian.

The identified municipalities and barangays mentioned are noted to be areas where the solon lost votes during the May 14 elections.

The solon said “their (excluded students) premeditated non-acceptance that the program is a privilege means refusal to appreciate the convenience and benefits brought about by the program”

Students who come from areas not identified above are not even automatically considered as grantees to the free tuition and free matriculation program of the school.

The solon’s chief of staff Manny Aluyen further instructed Dacyon to consider all student- enrollees who are not from the localities specified as “temporarily cleared and qualified from the program”, pending a screening process.

In response to the solon’s memorandum, nearly 700 MPSPC students wrote Commission on Higher Education and MPSPC Chair Board of Trustees Saturnino Ocampo Jr to intervene in their (students) behalf .

The students said the solon’s memo is “certainly adverse to the basic principle of the State to have access to education, much more to an institution administered and financially subsidized by the government.”

The protesting students further requested Ocampo to immediately suspend the implementation of the memorandum till further deliberations preferably with students.

Students questioned the responsibility of a State College president receiving instruction from a representative and her culpability for “hurriedly implementing such policy especially if it has critical consequence to the very citizens for which the state college derived the reason for its existence”.

The solon said the free education program has been “deliberately misconceived by some of the students and parents as program, of the government without the efforts and representation made by him (Dominguez)”.

Yet, funds of the free education program is sourced from the educational assistance program of the National Commission of Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) amounting to P3 million. NCIP has a regular scholarship program for students representing ethnolinguistic tribes/indigenous peoples from their respective provinces.

In an earlier meeting with NCIP, MPSPC and Dominguez, NCIP education and culture division chief Juliet Akia said Dominguez suggested that “all indigenous people-members of Mt Province studying in MPSPC shall automatically become grantees of NCIP’s educational fund and that the remaining expenses and operational needs of the college shall be subsidized by the solon’s Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF).”

Following this suggestion, a memorandum of agreement on said scholarship program was inked between NCIP and MPSPC. An additional amount of P7 million from the solon’s PDAF was released from the Department of Budget and Management last August 26, 2006 to MPSPC as scholarship expense valid for obligation until December 31, 2007 .

Akia said NCIP’s educational scholarship fund is “not meant for students who claim they are voters of Mt Province otherwise the program is intended for political accommodation which is a wrong premise”.

If they can prove that they are bonafide IP members of Mt Province they are qualified to be grantees, Akia said.

The solon in his campaign sorties during the recent May elections dangled free education to students saying that “losing your (students) support means losing these privileges of a continuous free tuition”.