By Perfecto Raymundo, Jr./PNA
MANILA — The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) on Friday assured that the reenacted budget has no effect on college students who are availing of government scholarship programs.
In a lunch tribute to the media at the College of Home Economics at the University of the Philippines Diliman, CHED chairman Prospero de Vera III said the free tuition and stipends of 300,000 government scholars in state and private universities and colleges are not affected by the re-enacted national budget of 2018.
De Vera added that even if the re-enacted budget will prevail until the first quarter of the year, it does not in any way affect the scholarship granted to 300,000 students of higher learning.
The CHED has set a PHP16-billion tertiary education subsidy for 2018.
In December last year, the House of Representatives passed on third and final reading the proposed PHP3.757 trillion national budget for 2019. However, the Senate has yet to pass its version of the proposed 2019 national budget.
“The Congress (House and the Senate) would hopefully pass the proposed PHP3.757 trillion national budget for 2019 within the first quarter of the year,” de Vera said.
He said they are proposing to increase the number of government scholars from 300,000 to 400,000 for this year, with CHED proposing a PHP40-billion tertiary education subsidy for 2019.
De Vera said the fiscal year is different from the school year, such that the disbursements for the last quarter of 2018 would still be made during the first quarter of 2019.
“Wala pong epekto sa karagdagang 100,000 scholars ang re-enacted budget (The re-enacted budget has no effect on the additional 100,000 scholars),” he said.
“Pwede pa rin pong mag-avail ng scholarship ang mga qualified students para sa tertiary education this year (The qualified students can still avail of the scholarship for the tertiary education this year),” he added.
