Posts archived in Batasan
April 24, 2011. Subic, Zambales. We were invited to conduct a leadership training seminar for the Sangguniang Kabataan federation of Ilagan, Isabela. I gave a talk on how to write resolutions. Aside from talks, we also facilitated some ‘team-building’ games.
Last March 23, 2011, Wednesday, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Higher and Technical Education tackled Kabataan Party-List’s House Bill 807 or the “Anti ‘No Permit No Exam Policy’ Bill.” It is a bill that would prohibit the implementation of the unjust “No Permit No Exam” policy being imposed in many schools, colleges and universities nationwide.
I’ve always believed that such a policy is unjust because it essentially forces the threat of academic delinquency on a student because of the financial capacity of his family. There are other means schools can explore in order to ensure payments of tuition and other fees without imposing prejudice on the academic standing of a student.
(Imagine a scenario where an honor student is dropped from the honor roll simply because his parent’s remittance was delayed due to a natural calamity in the country where the parent works, or a war breaks out there.) We actually received dozens of emails and calls a day last month because of the complaints about the “no permit, no exam” policy.
Majority of the congressmen in attendance favorably affirmed the bill in principle and agreed to have the bill consolidated into a final version with the other bills with a similar purpose. The consolidated version is to be approved on the next hearing. Only the congressman from A Teacher Party-List (which is a misnomer because they obviously represent the private interests of school owners and businessmen) rejected the bill and tried to water it down with so many nonsense insertions. As of the moment there are around thirty (30) congressmen who have signed House Bill 807 as co-authors.
On another note, we were able to successfully get the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to speak about the issue, and in a joint press conference, CHED reiterated their Memo (CMO No. 02-2010) instructing schools through an appeal not to implement the “no permit no exam” policy. It also brought to everyone’s attention Sec. 99 of the Manual for Regulation of Higher Education Institutions which states that “no higher education institution shall deny final examinations to a student who has outstanding financial or property obligations, including unpaid tuition and other school fees corresponding to the school term.”
March 9, 2011
March 8, 2011. The House of Representatives Justice Committee finally held its final affirmative vote before submitting the impeach complaints against Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez for the deliberation of the entire House membership in the Plenary. The vote yesterday was on whether or not the complaints had “probably cause”.
The impeachment complaint of BAYAN (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan) alleges that the Ombudsman betrayed the public trust and violated the Constitution via her inaction and failure to file charges in the P728 million fertilizer fund scam and the “Euro Generals” scandal, as well as her whitewash of the anomalous Mega Pacific deal.
More than a dozen members of the National Union of Students of the Philippines conducted a lightning rally inside the session hall of Batasang Pambansa to protest the proposed budget cuts of the Aquino administration against state universities and colleges. Outside Batasan, dozens more held a rally to urge Congress to reject the budget cuts, not only on state schools, but on other social services of the government, and rechannel non-productive yet monstrous spending on the military, on debt-servicing and on patronage dole-outs.
Call center agents and BPO workers unite! Support House Bill 2592!
A few days ago, a call center agent visited us at the Congress office to express her despair over the working conditions in her place of work. She’s now been dismissed (for being a “trouble maker”), and is currently fighting for her separation benefits in court. She reveals how she’s also been afflicted with carpal tunnel syndrome which her company refuses to compensate as a work-related problem. She claims she is not the only one suffering the same. Many of her co-workers have apparently also gotten pneumonia, two of whom had died. Many of them also have urinary tract infection (UTI).
She is not the first one to approach us narrating their problems working with BPO companies. It has become apparent that many BPO (business process outsourcing) companies commit various forms of exploitation in order to rake in the profits from this “sunshine industry”. From refusing to grant regularization to workers having had worked for more than six months (through various schemes), to refusing to provide adequate health and occupational safety services in such a sickness-prone environment (one of the surprisingly very common grievance is the no-bathroom break policy), many (I would assume that not all) companies (as in any industry) employ various means to maintain their profit margins at the expense of their employees.
Last Wednesday, several congressmen appeared before the press in the House of Representatives and pledged to disapprove the proposed budget cuts on state universities and colleges (SUC’s). Kabataan Party-List had gathered more than thirty signatures of congressmen who are against the Aquino administration’s proposed budget cuts. Earlier, thousands of students walked out of their classes and protested against the impending cuts on state subsidies.
Libro hindi bala! Edukasyon hindi giyera!
President Noynoy Aquino’s budget proposal for the country’s SUC’s for 2011 is nominally much lower from the budget two years ago by as much as P2 billion. Though nominally it is larger than earlier years, it is possibly the lowest in more than a decade, when computed against a constant consumer price index.
President Aquino’s proposal also reflects the lowest per-student spending on SUC’s, again when computed against a constant consumer price index.
This trend is simply a continuation of a long-standing government policy of reducing state subsidies on social services such as higher education in order to ensure debt servicing on its foreign and local creditors. This follows the neoliberal dictates of multinational financial institutions forcing governments around the world to treat higher education a service commodity that must be left alone, and thus vulnerable, to free market forces. This is the same neoliberal dogma being forced by creditors upon the throats of governments worldwide from Greece to Bangladesh to California. This neoliberal dogma challenges the long-held ideal that higher education is a public good that serves a social purpose, crucial and necessary in the development of a sovereign democratic society.
What does the budget cuts mean? Corollary to budget cuts on state universities are tuition and other fee increases in campuses nationwide. In the context of the Philippines where a third of the population live on less than P100 a day, this neoliberal policy on higher education reinforces the tragic social and economic conditions of many Filipinos by depriving them of their right to higher education.
Protest actions have been set these days leading up to September 24, Friday next week, when thousands of students and out-of-school youth are expected to walk out and march to the gates of Malacanang to demand for greater state subsidy for education. Let us collectively reject the budget cuts on state universities and colleges, and on other social services!
President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III (photo from www.gov.ph)
The Aquino Administration submitted its budget proposal for 2011 to Congress this week. It is through the budget where one can see the priorities of the government, in how much it intends to spend on various programs of government. For 2011, the government under the Aquino administration intends to spend P1.645 trillion.
In his budget message, the President claimed that the spending proposal of the government for next year is anchored on “reform”. The budget claims to have a “bias to the poor and the vulnerable”. However, right at the onset, it is still oriented towards severe austerity, masked with the euphemism “fiscal responsibility,” a government spending orientation that has been the standard policy for decades. It is a policy intended not to simply ensure that the “meager resources” of the government are spent wisely for the people, to ensure that the government is able to pay its foreign and local creditors its monstrous, anomalous and scandalous debt.
Just to show you how scandalous and hypocritical the government’s budget orientation is, the Aquino Administration proposes to pay foreign creditors and financial institutions a whopping P823.27 billion next year (P357.09 billion in interest payments, P466.18 billion in principal amortization not formally included in the P1.645 trillion total budget). According to the initial budget analysis and report of IBON Foundation, the increase in interest payments alone “is the largest absolute increase in interest payments in the country’s history and, at a 29.2% increase from the year before, is the second largest percentage increase after the 32.6% growth in 2000.”
Kabataan Party-List Rep. Raymond 'Mong' Palatino, flanked by his family and national officers of Kabataan Party-List, takes his oath as re-elected Congressman before Senator Francis 'Chiz' Escudero
Last Friday, we had our first nominee, incumbent Congressman Mong Palatino take his oath as re-elected Representative of Kabataan Party-list before Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, one of the more prominent legislators closest to the youth sector.
It was a short and simple gathering over lunch. Our regional leaders were also present, as we were also holding our National Council meeting during those days.
law student, national democracy activist, film school graduate, photography hobbyist
