Put half of $400M ADB loan in education — lawmaker

(updated 3:37 p.m.) A partylist representative on Monday urged the Aquino administration to allot half of the $400 million poverty loan from the Asian Development Bank to state universities and colleges (SUCs). In his House Resolution 488, Kasanga Rep. Teodoro Haresco expressed fear that the meager budget allocation for Philippine tertiary education might hamper the country from producing professionals. “The incoherent and incompatible budget for the primary education and the tertiary education might eventually produce a ‘high-school graduate’ society and diminish the Philippine’s competitiveness in producing competent and qualified professionals," he said. While the proposed national budget for 2011 increased the appropriation for the Department of Education from P174.96 billion to P207.27 billion, representing an 18.46 percent increase, the budget for the state universities and colleges was lowered by 1.7 percent, from P23.8 billion in 2010 to only P23.4 billion in 2011, according to Haresco. He cited the statement of President Benigno Aquino III in the 2011 budget message that “quality education at all levels is the priority of his administration" as a “key to reducing poverty". Because of this, the Haresco resolution proposed that half of the ADB loan “should be re-aligned and re-channeled to augment the budget for education, specifically the budget for SUCs" for the cash aid to have the greatest impact. Haresco said the “government should invest in its people because the Filipinos are the nation’s most precious resource." The $400 million loan is payable in 25 years, after a five-year grade period, and carries an interest rate based on the London interbank rates and a commitment charge of 0.15 percent a year. The ADB approved the loan last month, and will be sourced from its ordinary capital resources. The money was initially allotted to fund the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s P29.1 billion Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program — or the conditional cash transfer for the poor — “an amount which is significantly greater than the P12 billion allotted for the same program last year", the lawmaker said. The conditional cash transfer scheme was initiated by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now Pampanga Second District representative. For 2011, 2.3 million poor families are expected to receive cash dole outs under the program. Haresco said, however, that many people see some loopholes in the scheme’s monitoring and counter-checking of beneficiaries that are supposedly the “poorest of the poor" Filipinos. — VS, GMANews.TV