Rejoinder of the All UP Academic Union(AUPAU) to the Response of   the de Dios Committee to the AUPAU Position Paper on the Proposal to Increase Tuition and Other Fees for incoming UP students        

The de Dios Committee has reacted to the Position Paper of the All UP Academic Union(AUPAU)  pointing out certain clarifications regarding its final report on the proposal for the increase of tuition and miscellaneous fees for new UP students, which it submitted to the BOR. While in its proposal, it did not show the increase of average family incomes of Filipinos from 1988 to 2003, it now presents this as table R1 in its response to AUPAU(see Table 1 below) to justify the increases of tuition fee to a minimum of P300/unit to the full tuition fee of P1000 to P1500/unit(the latter for the richest UP students) for Group 1 and P200/unit to P1000/unit for Group 2(see Table 2 and Table 3). With these new data, the de Dios committee believes that its recommendation to increase tuition and other fees for incoming freshmen is warranted since family incomes for Filipinos have trebled from 1988 to 2003.

            Table 3:(Table 10 of the final repot)

            Source: Income-statistics from the UP Office of Admission, Family

                        and expenditure survey 2003(FIES)

            *Income of the richest person in each decile

            **Average income of each decile

With this new self-justification, the de Dios committee has entirely missed the point of the position of the (AUPAU) regarding its opposition to any increase in tuition and other fees for new UP students. The AUPAU  stand is that the salaries and wages of Filipino families have not kept up with the rise in the prices of goods and services in the Philippines as exemplified in the increasing cost of living for a Filipino family. In its position paper, the AUPAU presented Table 4 showing the increasing cost of living for a family of six from 2001 to 2005, which we are now updating up to June 2006(Table 3 below).[1] From table 3, it will be seen that those in the 7^th decile of Filipino family incomes in 2003, in spite of the trebling of their earnings since 1988, would still be living below the required daily income just to survive ( P462 per day for the whole Philippines in 2003 compared to P368.4 actual income per day in 2003 for a Filipino family in the 7^th decile, from P134,473/365 days in a year). And this is only for the year 2003, because the daily cost of living for a Filipino family has increased to P552.40 by June, 2006. The minimum wage of workers, and a great number of UP students have only one wage-earning breadwinner in their families, has been pegged up to the present(2006) at P245.27 for the whole Philippines, P303.33 in the NCR.[2] This is only 44% of the required income just to support a Filipino family which is P552.4 for June 2006 for the whole Philippines.  Even the National Wages and Productivity Commission (NWPC) computes the “living wage” or the minimum wage for a family of six at P703.46 in the NCR, though it assumes that a family must have at least two breadwinners.[3]

And if we further factor in inflation of 7.125 % for 2006, the real value of the incomes of families of entering UP freshmen in 2004(the data used by the de Dios committee to show that the incomes of families in UP are higher then the national average) would be:(See Table 5, next page)

With the foregoing, an increase of 100% to 500% in tuition fees as the de Dios committee recommends for all new UP students would indeed add another economic burden to the already low income-earning Filipino families, including those of UP students. NSO data would show that based on the required daily cost of living of P552.4(June, 2006) for a Filipino family and using the FIES for 2003, 80% of Filipino families would be living below this required daily cost of living(not even including the proposed increase in tuition and other fees for UP families), meaning that a great number is poor in Philippine society[4]

            In its response to the AUPAU position paper, the de Dios committee contends that “only slightly more than 5 percent of total enrolled students actually avail themselves of STFAP privileges”. This is a departure from its previous data as presented in its proposal to the BOR to increase tuition and other fees that “10 percent (of UP student population)…typically qualify under STFAP Brackets 1-5.”(p.13, 2^nd pag. of final report of the de Dios committee) How was the de Dios Committee able to complete this turn-about in facts? In its response to AUPAU, it avers that the extra 5 percent in bracket 5 which it included in its original proposal as availing of tuition-fee discounts(p.4, 3^rd pag. of final report) are actually paying the present full tuition fee of P300. And this the de Dios committee accomplished by revising its original table of STFAP bracketing in its final report which shows brackets 1 to 5 as tuition-fee exempt and bracket 6 as paying only 25% of tuition to a new STFAP table(table R3) presented in its response to AUPAU. In this new table , there is an additional column entitled “Actual tuition-fee likely paid”, showing that brackets 2 to 6 are actually paying the full tuition fee of P300. Thus, with the word “actual” and “likely” the de Dios committee attempts to justify its inconsistent position on what amount UP students in truth pay for tuition fees.

            Furthermore, the argument of the De Dios committee that since “almost 90 percent of students can and do pay the current maximum tuition fees (P300/unit) anyway”, therefore, it is all right to increase tuition fees is logically fallacious besides being insensitive to the economic difficulties of the families of incoming UP students. It is begging the question or a petitio principii argument, where what is to be justified or concluded is already contained in the premise. It is also to be noted that the reason why so few students qualify for full and partial fee tuition fee discounts in the current STAFP is not that only 5% of students avail of these privileges, as the de Dios committee claims, but because the criteria for qualifying for these privileges are so stringent so that the UP administration is able to trim down the qualifiers to 5%( or is it 10%?) of total UP student population. If a UP inspector determining whether an applicant is really deserving of STFAP discount visits the latter’s house and finds out that his/her family has expensive curtains or appliances, these could be grounds for rejecting the applicant. Ask any UP student who applied for STAFP and they will tell you stories that are fit for drama scenes depicting the harshness of the rich against the poor

            The de Dios committee response misrepresents the stance of the AUPAU on the increase of tuition and other fees for incoming UP freshmen. We are not demanding for a new re-bracketing based on the deflated rate of the incomes of families of new UP students (see table 5), which will push up even those in bracket 8 of the current STAFP to bracket 1 with full tuition fee discount, but rather for a halt to any rise in tuition and other fees in the University. Organizations of UP students backed up by their families may be the ones to negotiate with the UP administration for a new re-bracketing of the STAFP based on the real value of the incomes of UP families, adjusted for inflation.

            What the AUPAU calls for the UP Administration is to join us in the fight to lobby for an increase of the annual UP budget and not to resort to adding greater financial problems to the already worsening conditions of UP families, brought about by the incessant rise in the prices of goods and services. We are not also demanding this increase of the UP budget at the expense of basic education ( primary and secondary education in the Philippines) as the de Dios committee accuses us of, up to its old trick again of pitting one sector against another to drive home a point. What we demand is a general increase in the education budget of the government, including for basic education and for other state colleges and universities (SCUs), which we believe can be achieved if the present administration changes its budget prioritization for foreign debt and the military. It must be noted that from the supposed higher present budget of UP compared to other SCUs as the de Dios committee reminds us, 1/3 of this goes to the PGH(the leading government hospital).

            We are reiterating our vehement objection to the creeping commercialization of our University as exemplified, among other things, in an increase in tuition and other fees as the usual practice in profit-oriented schools like La Salle and Ateneo, which the de Dios committee uses as a point of positive comparison to UP tuition policy. Gradual commercialization is after all a prelude to privatization as what happened to many government corporations. Commercialization also leads to the deterioration of the standards of education, which needs not be gainsaid because of numerous cases of such situations not only in our societies but in others.

 Finally, we call on all to fight to preserve the status of UP as a state school providing affordable and quality education to the less privileged in our society. The UP administration can work with other sectors of the University in a transparent manner to improve the resources of the University, and not immediately transfer the burden of supporting state education to its students. For indeed, it behooves the leaders of our University to be democratically responsible and accountable to the constituencies they serve.

                                                                                       ALL UP ACADEMIC UNION

                                                                                          Sept., 2006

                        The committee misrepresents AUPAU stand by saying we are for a new rebracketing, when in fact we are only for no tuition and other fees increase. A new bracketing may be left to organizations of students backed by their parents in negotiations with the UP admi.

            Let the policy of UP admission be democratically revised in favor of the majority poor of families of incoming freshmen. This may be done by choosing qualifiers in the UPCAT though their grades may be lower than those with higher family incomes over the latter. This will of course require research and classification work for UP personnel, but if we want a truly democratic UP, this is a small price to pay.

            We are for an increased UP budget and also a general increase for all educational sectors, including for primary and secondary education. It must be noted that 1/3 of UP budget is allocated to the PGH which is part of UP. The committee again is up to its old trick of pitting the needs of another sector against another, this time the budget of UP against the budget for primary and secondary education.