However, unlike his previous SONA, this was the first time that Aquino dedicated a part of his speech to education. Aquino proudly claims that the budget for State Universities and Colleges (SUC) increased from last year's Php 25B to Php 37B.
We are not surprised to hear about this increase. Past years' strikes of public universities and weekly walkouts from classes against budget cut gained wide public support reaching even the international community. The youth's opposition to cuts on the budget of education and other social services sent a strong message to the Aquino administration that we mean it when we say we will fight against budget cuts.
Our successive militant response against the government's policy of abandoning its responsibility to fulfill people's right to education pushed Aquino to minimally increase the budget for SUCs. They can no longer ignore the wide opposition of the youth and the people.
This year's additional budget for SUCs is not a major policy shift of the Aquino government to prioritize education. Compared to the SUCs and education budget, greater increases were given to military spending, dole-outs in the form of conditional cash transfers, corrupt-prone pork barrels, and foreign debt payments.
While the concern has always been to stop cuts in the budget of SUCs, the more essential question is: is it enough? While the Aquino government is allotting Php 37B to SUCs, a total of Php 50B is needed to finance its operations. The gap in the allotted and proposed budget will be internally generated in the form of higher tuition, more fees, and commercialization of assets.
The increase in the budget of SUCs is not at all a blessing from the Aquino government. Additional budget for a year cannot easily make up for the successive cuts in the budgets in the past years.
Aquino's 2013 budget is still grossly misappropriated, allotting more money to foreign needs and questionable programs while little for social services such as health, education and housing badly needed by the youth and the people.
Aquino's statement in his SONA speech then perfectly sums up the present sentiment of the Filipino youth: that despite the additional budget, 'ngayon pa lang, may nagplaplano nang mag cut-classes para mag-piket sa Mendiola.'
We know our math. This why Aquino should prepare for bigger strikes and walkouts from the youth, for we understand that under his daang matuwid, education is not a priority. ###
Cleve Arguelles, UP System Student Regent