House panel seeks special CHEd audit
Paying for 2021 dues
“There are two cohorts that will be given. One cohort is second-year students who have been enrolled since 2021, so we give them P40,000 to cover both 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The second cohort is freshman students who were enrolled in 22-23, and we used 2023 money for them because that is still covered by the academic year,” he added
Garin however maintained that what de Vera said contradicts what the DBM official stated: that a particular annual budget can only be used for the corresponding school year. But the CHEd chief insisted it was the best solution they could come up with.
“That is still the same because the point of reckoning is the time when you paid, the point of reckoning is if it’s being used for the previous school year which is not aligned to the 2023 allocation,” Garin said.
“Madam Chair, that is the best that we can give upon the instruction of Congress. If it will be disallowed by DBM then we will not pay it, that’s our promise,” de Vera said.
HEIs asking CHEd to pay the tuition fees of scholars, which are supposed to be subsidized by the government, is not new. Last May, de Vera admitted that SUCs are demanding over P2 billion in supplemental funds as the schools experienced an enrollment spike after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then in September 2022, CHEd asked for an additional P12.5 billion funding to support 205,584 new grantees under the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) for students enrolled in private schools.