THE UNIVERSAL ACCESS TO QUALITY TERTIARY EDUCATION ACT

I. INTRODUCTION

A. The Public Policy

Quality education, one of the seventeen global goals for sustainable development set
by the United Nations, aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote
lifelong learning opportunities for all. In response and unison to this noble goal of the UN,
the Philippine government, aside from its numerous other policies about education, has
enacted Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. The
long title of this act is “An Act Promoting Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education by
Providing for Free Tuition and Other School Fees in State Universities and Colleges, Local
Universities and Colleges and State-run Technical-vocational Institutions, Establishing the
Tertiary Education Subsidy and Student Loan Program, Strengthening the Unified Student
Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education, and Appropriating Funds Therefor.”

President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed this act last August 3, 2017. RA 10931 is geared
towards providing free tuition for more than a hundred state universities and colleges, almost
a hundred accredited local universities and colleges, and all registered Vocational and
Technical Education and Training under the Technical Education and Skills Development
Authority or TESDA (Fernandez & Gonzales, 2019).

One of the primary purposes of the act is to address dropout rates, primarily those
who drop out due to financial difficulties. This is not merely a transfer of resources but rather
assisting financially those in the tertiary part of their education (Lim, Lomer, & Millora,
2018).

B. Objectives

C. Overview of the Paper

The rest of the paper is organized as follows; presentation of the Methodology, which
covers the (a) Data Collection and (b) Method of Analysis. This will be followed by a
discussion and analysis of the different parts of the policy-making process. Each sub-part will
have a narrative followed by a critique of each component. Next will be the Conclusion,
which will be closed by the Recommendation part.

II. METHODOLOGY

A. Data Collection
 The data utilized in this paper came from different sources. Most of the resources
came from the online Senate Legislative Digital Resource. In concurrence with the House of
Representatives, online resources and materials about the deliberation and action on House
Bill 5633 were also used. Data from Commission on Higher Education, Unified Student
Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) reports and gathered
information from partner government agencies. Lastly, new articles and research
journals/entries comprise a part of the data used in this paper.

B. Method of Analysis

The scope of analysis will focus mainly on the SUCs and LUCs and not much more
on the vocational tech aspect of the law as the prior has more data as of the moment. Content
analysis will be done on the information gathered from the previously mentioned sources.

III. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

A. Problem Definition and Agenda Setting

Quality Education has been an ideal goal set by the United Nations. How UN member
states help attain that goal would depend on each country. Here in the Philippines, education
remains one of the top pie-getters in the annual budget, which speaks of the country's
commitment to providing education to its populace (Education still top priority in 2019
proposed budget, 2018). The budget allocation for education is also stipulated in the 1987
Constitution Article XIV, Section 5, Paragraph 5: "The State shall assign the highest
budgetary priority to education and ensure that teaching will attract and retain its rightful
share of the best available talents through adequate remuneration and other means of job
satisfaction and fulfillment."

Despite the budget allocation, it has been a perennial issue dealing with education
problems. What then prompted the crafting of this policy? The leading proponent of this
policy back then was Senator Paolo Benigno "Bam" Aquino IV, who also was the
Chairperson of the Committee on Education, Culture and Arts from July 2016 to February
2017.

In a report by Geronimo (2016), the Commission on Higher Education received

additional funding of Php 8.3 billion allocated for free tuition fees in State Universities and
Colleges (SUCs). However, we can trace this plan by lawmakers to cover the tuition fees of
undergraduate students back to the 2015 budget deliberations.

In the earlier part of 2016, during the campaign period, the promises of presidential
candidates, particularly Grace Poe, may have stirred the discussion of providing free tuition
fees in SUCs nationwide. Two senatorial candidates have also given the same promise, only
to differ in the required budget to realize the plan; Representative Sherwin Gatchalian and
Former Representative Walden Bello pegged Php 15 billion and Php 150 billion, respectively
(Geronimo, 2016).

As to what prompted Sen. Aquino to spearhead the crafting of the bill at the Senate,
whether it was riding the momentum of the Free Tuition 2017 (GAA 2017) for SUCs with an
approved budget or his agenda being the committee chair, there will be no way of validating
it. By January 24, 2017, Sen. Aquino has given his sponsorship speech for Senate Bill No.
1304 Under Committee Report No. 28 An Act Providing for a Full Tuition Fee Subsidy For
Students Enrolled In State Universities And Colleges (SUCs), And Appropriating Funds
Thereof Otherwise Known As The "Free Higher Education For All Act" (Sponsorship
Speech: An Act Providing Full Tuition Subsidy for Students Enrolled in SUCs, 2017).

B. Policy Formulation

Regarding the policy's formulation, we will refer to one of Cerna's (2013) theories,
Politics of policy change and reform.

Reich (as cited in Cerna, 2013) states, "broad reforms are possible when there is
sufficient political will and when changes to a sector are designed and implemented by
capable planners and managers." We are convinced about the political will aspect though the
part on capable planners and managers seems to be a gray area. Cerna (2013) also discussed
Reich's view that reform is political for the following reasons:

1. It represents a selection of values that express a particular view of society.

The policy is mainly about the attainment of tertiary education through free tuition.
With the 1987 Constitution Article XIV making sure education has the most significant
budget, it seems safe to say that Filipino society gives a premium to educating its populace.
Though in the August 17, 2017, session of Congress, Rep. Elago stressed that our nation
allows about 10% of the total education budget for tertiary education. Compared to other
ASEAN countries, this seems pale compared to Malaysia (31%) and Indonesia (25%). This
shows that despite the highest budget as per Constitution, the tertiary aspect in terms of
budget is not getting an equal distribution.

2. Reform has distinct distributional consequences in allocating benefits and costs.

As mentioned in the September 2017 session of Congress, Representative Nograles
mentioned that they are looking for around Php 37.5 to Php 50 billion, a far contrast to the
estimate of Sec. Diokno at Php 100 billion. In the same session, Rep. Nograles also quipped
that during the budget deliberations, they had identified agencies who had not adequately
utilized their allocations and would instead give the funding to the free tertiary education
project.

3. Reform promotes competition among groups that seek to influence consequences.

 Providing Free Tertiary education is a landmark law, and both Senate and House of
Representatives members want to take part in the history of its crafting. Spearheaded by Sen.
Bam Aquino along with others (Recto, Ejercito, Angara, Pangilinan, Gatchalian, Villanueva,
and Legarda) from the education committee, it has picked the interest of many senators who
want to co-author the bill such as De Lima, Villar, Gordon, and Zubiri. In the part of the
House, during her sponsorship speech last May 19, 2017 session, Representative Ann Hofer
shared that eighty-nine co-authors are on their side of the fence. Let's look at the number of
legislators wanting to be put on record as one who initiated this bill into a reality. In that case,
it is quite a competition to gain that influence.

4. Enactment or non-enactment of reform is often associated with regular political

events or crises.
Before the passing of RA 10931, there was good news back then, as mentioned in the
earlier parts of this paper, the Free Tuition 2017 (GAA 2017) (Phil Newsome, 2016). This
has brought precedence to RA 10931, laying the foundation and the possibility that free
tuition is achievable.

The recent 2016 election has also influenced the bill's passing as promises made by
some politicians have spurred the idea.

5. Reform can have significant consequences for a regime's political stability.

The consequence can either be good or bad. In the case of President Duterte's
approval of this law, it seems to go on the positive side. After approving the law last August
2017, congratulatory remarks and words of appreciation were sent from the supporters and
opposition blocks as well as progressive groups (Mendez, 2017).

According to Cerna (2013), "A strong and narrow political coalition improves the
capacity of political leaders to resist the pressures of concentrated economic costs." This is
the picture of the policy as it was being processed from the Senate to the House of Congress.
Based on the Senate online resource, last March 13, 2017, during the Third Reading, a
unanimous eighteen (18) "yes" votes were recorded for the bill. On the side of Congress, last
May 22, 2017, a total of 221 "yes" votes were garnered, zero "no" and "abstain." With both
houses showing full support for the policy amidst the gloomy forecast of the economic team
on the budgetary cost of the law if implemented, it is a testament to how this policy
formulation of RA 10931 fits in the context of Cerna's "Politics of Change and Reform."

C. Policy Selection and Decision Making

If we look at decision-making on how fast the process went through from start to
finish, the actors were quite decisive except when President Duterte had to sign the law. From
January 24, 2017, Sen. Aquino’s sponsorship was given up to March 14, 2017, when there
was a request for concurrence with the House up to July 5, 2017, where it was transmitted to
Malacañang for the President’s signature. Mr. Duterte took all the time he had legally to
decide. According to reports, he signed it Thursday night of August 3, 2017, just hours before
it lapsed into law (Mendez, 2017). Generally, it took only eight months for the law to be
approved.

D. Policy Implementation

Based on Cerna’s (2013) discussion on Policy Implementation, we would have based

RA 10931 on the Top to Bottom approach considering this was borne out of national-level
institutions such as the Senate and Congress. However, one crucial factor in Cerna’s top to
bottom is that implementation is more of an administrative process. Suppose we look at it
through Agency Theory, which states that principals delegate implementation to state agents,
is more fitting. If we consider the policymakers as the principals and CHED/SUCs/Private
HEIs as the state agents, then Agency Theory best explains RA 10931.

After August 3, 2017, signed by President Duterte, it took some time before the law
was properly implemented. In a press statement released by the Senate last February 13,
2018, the body calls for the immediate implementation of RA 10931 via a resolution the day
before. Based on the resolution, “RA 10931 effectively became a law on August 18, 2017, or
15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette. In relation, Congress had already
included P8 billion in the General Appropriations Act of 2017 to fund free tuition and P41
billion to fund the provisions of the UAQTEA” (Senate calls for immediate implementation
of free tuition for SUCs, 2018).

Still, from the exact resolution, it was stated that members of both houses in the
bicameral conference committee on the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act
agreed that implementation would take effect by November 2017 or by the second semester
of the academic year 2017-2018.

Furthermore, Senator Bam Aquino shared that during the budget deliberation for RA
10931, CHED assured that the P41 billion budget for its implementation was enough to cover
the tuition and other fees in SUCs starting the second semester of 2017-18.

Representative Joey Salceda, one of the principal authors, has cited several problems
in the implementation. In a report by Cepeda (2018), Salceda shared that only 9 out of 199
HEIs have been provided funds to implement free tuition for the first semester. He also
questioned why UniFAST still holds the budget at this time when it should already be in the
SUCs.

One of the main reasons why the economic managers of the Duterte administration
opposed the approval of RA 10931 is the budgetary concerns. In an article by Reganit (2017),
Duterte admitted that he signed the law despite concerns about its funding through the House
Leader. Nograles assured that funds are pooled for the implementation of the law.
 What the economic team proposed back then is to instead fully fund the UniFast,
which according to the team, “is a better alternative because it provides a more coherent and
comprehensive framework to address the educational needs of the students and is better
designed to ensure a more efficient and effective use of government funds” (Rojas, 2017).

To do well in these entrance exams, the student should have an excellent educational
foundation in the primary and secondary years. As the law virtually made tertiary education
accessible, even those who can afford to pay their tuition, even in private academic
institutions, would welcome this offering from the government. Contreras (2017) pointed out
that those who have higher levels of competitiveness which came from quality schools, or
those in who can afford to have their children take review classes are most likely to get into
colleges/universities that offer free tuition, in effect bumping off the poor ones and those
graduates of less competitive schools.

In their article, Fernandez & Gonzales (2019) shared that SUCs require their entrants,
as the minimum, to pass their entrance examination. Those from public schools with
insufficient teachers and buildings have high dropout rates of two hundred to four hundred
thousand and have fewer chances of passing these entrance examinations than their private
school-enrolled counterparts.

Adding to the problems of public high school graduates is the K-12 system which
imposes additional two years of high school with higher subjects being taught by public
school teachers who are only trained to teach basic subjects. In short, these public school
teachers are unequipped to teach these public school students.

If, by any stroke of luck or merely talent, these students from the lower
socioeconomic tier pass the entrance examinations, the hurdle continues beyond there.
Fernandez and Gonzales (2019 cited the paper by Roberto de Vera, and Jennifer Tan
presented last 2015 at the 11th National Convention on Statistics. The said paper showed the
average annual cost of a Metro Manila-based public high school student during 2010 is at
Php 4,560.00

E. Evaluation

Based on the National Economic Development Authority's Guidelines for Evaluation

in the National Government, "Evaluation is the systematic, rigorous, and impartial
assessment of a program or project to ascertain its level of achievement. It examines an
intervention's design, implementation, context, and results based on its relevance, coherence,
efficiency, effectiveness, impact, sustainability, and other criteria. The Evaluation must be
conducted independently to provide credible and useful information that organizations and
stakeholders can use in their decision-making".
 In this light, we refer to two independent studies that somehow provided Evaluation
on RA 10931. First is the Process Evaluation of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary
Education Act (RA 10931): Status and Prospects for Improved Implementation by Ortiz et al.
(2019). Second is the Utilization of CHED-UniFAST's Tertiary Education Subsidy by the
Students of a State University, Philippines by Maga-ao & Gonzales (2019). The first study
gathered data from the literature on free education, online information among different HEIs
in the country, Key Informant interviews with stakeholders all based in Metro Manila, and
data from relevant agencies.

Based on the findings of Ortiz et al. (2019), if the objectives of the law are realistic
and achievable, the respondents are still determining if these are attainable due to the current
design and resources required to sustain them. Though the objectives are attainable in theory,
the respondents think otherwise. Moreover, the respondents agree that the law provided more
access but did not consider other education-related costs.

IV. CONCLUSION

The policy's problem definition and agenda setting were achieved through the Senate
Committee on Education, Culture and Arts initiative headed by then-Senator Paolo Benigno
"Bam" Aquino IV. Probably due to promises in the recent 2016 election, the ground laid by
the preceding Free Tuition 2017 and giving attention to the societal struggle of attaining
higher education marked the beginnings of Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to
Quality Tertiary Education Act.

In terms of instruments used in agenda setting, it has utilized several means such as
Routinize, Regularize, and Imposition. Considering this, it has involved several stakeholders
and is not an absolute imposition by the government to develop a policy.

The weakness in agenda setting is that the policymakers focused on the eutopic goal of
providing blanket free tuition for tertiary students and needed to give more diligence on the
preceding scholarship policies.

Regarding Policy Formulation, RA 10931 is in the mold of the Politics of Policy

Change and Reform theory.

Based on the criteria of the theory, it represented the value of attaining education for
all. It experienced benefit/cost distributional consequences as the policy required a
considerable budget, bringing about changes in the already prepared budget. It also promoted
competition in terms of influence as landslide votes were gathered in both Houses and
numerous authors participation. It was also associated with political events such as the
passing of a very welcomed Free Tuition 2017 law and preceding the 2016 elections. Lastly,
the approval of Pres. Duterte of the law earned the nod of people from both sides of the fence,
with progressive groups also expressing their thanks for the president's move.
 There were also reports of discrepancies in the ground implementation against the
Implementing Rules and Regulations.

V. RECOMMENDATION

1. Retract or supersede RA 10931- from a taxpayer's perspective, we would welcome

supporting poor but mentally abled students in their tertiary education. However,
subsidizing students whose family incomes are way higher is an unfair and improper
use of the social equity concept. Orbeta & Paqueo (2017) stated in their report that the
bulk of the students in HEIs is mostly from financially abled groups. Students from
the poorest and second poorest deciles were only 12% in 2014. Thus, providing free
tuition in SUCs will benefit wealthier students.
Part of the RA 10931 provision is the Tertiary Education Subsidy. One of the possible
problems this policy will make is the Bennet Hypothesis based on the idea of the
former US Education Secretary who penned "Greedy Colleges." He opined, "If
anything, increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and
universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would
help cushion the increase" (Guilas, 2017). In short, there is a possibility that private
HEIs will increase their tuition and school fees as the government will cover such
expenses through RA
References:

Cupin, B. (2018). Sarah Elago on why being young and being a dissenter matters.
Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/nation/198739-sarah-elago-profile-
legislators-philippines/

Department of Budget and Management. (22 September 2018). Education still top
priority in 2019 proposed budget.
https://www.dbm.gov.ph/index.php/secretary-s-corner/press-releases/list-of-
press-releases/1216-education-still-top-priority-in-proposed-2019-budget

Education, Science and Technology, Arts, Culture and Sports, Article XIV, § 5(5)
(Phil.). https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/constitutions/the-1987-constitution-
of-the-republic-of-the-philippines/the-1987-constitution-of-the-republic-of-
the-philippines-article-xiv/

Fernandez, C.O., & Gonzales, Z.G. (2019). Paying a way to higher education. The
Guidon. https://theguidon.com/1112/main/2019/10/paying-a-way-to-higher-
education/?fbclid=IwAR1mbc-
rH8PEOfU9zg2fPNk4tBZPjnAhI2s7S2E55M2_66n-xVUuBQM-E0k

Mendez, C. (2017). Duterte signs law on free college tuition. Philstar Global.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2017/08/04/1725170/duterte-signs-law-
free-college-tuition

Umil, A.M. (2017). Progressive youths to fight for free public education at all levels.
Bulatlat Journalism for the People.
https://www.bulatlat.com/2017/01/15/progressive-youths-fight-free-public-
education-levels/

Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act 2017.

https://republicact.com/docs/statute/13139/ra-10931-universal-access-to-
quality-tertiary-education-act#!