Press Release
July 23, 1999



THE recent "expose" done by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) comes as a surprise to us students. According to CHED, 17 schools have been operating without the necessary permit. Schools like Philippine Maritime Institute (PMI) and the Systems Technology Institute (STI) are included in the long list.

The attempt of CHED to grandstand and make this a showcase is almost welcomed, but it is bit too late. Like the police in the movies who always arrives when all the commotion has subsided, the effort of the CHED to "crackdown" on schools on the walls, as Congressman Robert Ace Barbers put it, comes at a time when the damage has been done.

The various organizations, including the League of Filipino Students (LFS), have filed various cases of violations by different schools since 1996. The violations ranged from exorbitant tuition fees; non-compliance to the 70-20-10 sharing scheme, to campus democratic rights violations. The students who experience those violations have either graduated or drop-out without seeing any justice done to their cause. All the reasons the CHED could give the parents and students were that they are only a monitoring institution, nothing else.

Now comes the drastic action by the CHED to close down the said violators. But by closing these schools, the most affected by this will be the 24,000 students enrolled in these schools. The years and money and effort poured by students and parents, expecting this will be their ticket to a better future become useless. The students are left with no choice; either they wait it out until the school administrators remunerate them, or transfer to another school starting all over again. Either or the students are on the losing end.

We will not allow CHED to aggravate the already sorry state of our fellow students by closing down the said schools. They are responsible for letting these schools to exist in the first place. They become even more responsible since the documented violations have already landed on their table, yet it landed on their deaf ears.

The owners of these schools must pay for their actions of making education one big business; they must do everything to make their courses meet the necessary standards. The past graduates must also be recognized because they are just innocent victims of the neglect of the government and CHED, victims of the greediness of the capitalist educators.

No to the Closure of the 17 schools!
Justice for the Students and Graduates!
No to Deregulation and Commercialization of Education!


NOEL COLINA
National Chairperson,
League of Filipino Students (LFS)

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