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Students get what they want: CHED chief vows to block PUP tuition hike


After destroying an entrance gate and splattering paint all over the vicinity of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in Quezon City, a group of raucous rallying students finally got the answer they wanted from CHED chairman Emmanuel Angeles. On Wednesday afternoon, Angeles faced the protesters — a mix of students from the University of the Philippines and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines — and vowed to block moves to increase tuition in PUP by 17 folds or from P12 to P200 per unit. "I think it is unreasonable to increase by [almost] 2,000 percent. Kung mag-i-increase, dapat konti lang. Pero ngayon, hindi na muna [dapat mag-increase]," said Angeles, who sits as chairman of the PUP Board of Regents. He said he would await and review the report that would be submitted to him by the members of the PUP BOR, but added: "I personally am not going to allow the increase."


Angeles said he was not present when the PUP board convened to discuss the planned tuition hike because he was in Singapore that time and had only arrived back Tuesday night. [See: PUP president says 17-fold tuition hike 'necessary'] After making a scene at the UP Diliman campus by splattering paint on a UP Los Baños chancellor, student protesters from the state university marched toward the CHED office along C. P. Garcia and merged with student activists that had also trooped from PUP in Sta. Mesa, Manila. [See: UP students lob plastic bags of paint at school official] In their rally in front of the CHED building, the students tried barging into the entrance gates but security personnel held them off. A CHED employee initially came out to talk to the students, but the protesters demanded that Angeles himself face them. In a radio interview after his dialog with the students, Angeles belied claims made by the PUP management that the state university stands to lose around P50 to P70 million if the tuition hike is not implemented. "Hindi totoo iyon (That's not true). That is so wrong," he said. But asked how he could help augment budget allocated for PUP and other state universities, the CHED chairman said: "Ang sabi ko nga sa kanila [students], kung kailangan ng pera, tutulungan ko na lang sila para makakuha ng donasyon [I will just help the students shore in donations]." — Mark Merueñas, RSJ/KBK, GMANews.TV
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