COMMISSION on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Prospero “Popoy” De Vera has been charged with multiple cases before the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the allegedly unaccounted P10.3-billion higher education development fund.

The budget was supposed to be allocated for the free tuition and living allowance of governments scholars as provided for under Republic Act (RA) 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

The complaint was filed by Agapito Lubaton, administrator and chief executive officer of Marvelous College of Technology, located in Koronadal City, one of the private higher educational institutions (HEIs) ) authorized to accept government scholars in the absence of a state university or college in a certain area.

In a four-page affidavit-complaint, the CHED chief was accused of negligence of duties as public official, violation of RA 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business Law, grave abuse of power and authority amounting to unfair and oppressive action, moral injury cause to hopeful students and educational institutions and non-payment of living allowances for grantees/student scholars.

“In this particular case, Mr. De Vera must have full knowledge and understanding of the provisions of RA 10931 which is the root cause of the instant complaint for his failure to faithfully comply with its mandate to provide sufficient subsidy for free tuition and students living allowance which under the said law had clearly pointed out for the appropriation of funds,” the complaint-affidavit read.

According to Lubaton, student grantees enrolled in HEIs are under the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education or UniFAST, which is in charge of implementing RA 10931 to ensure that all eligible Filipinos get access to adequate and equitable education.

Under the UniFAST program, scholars are to be provided P30,000 per semester for tuition fee and living allowance.

The CHED is supposed to remit the corresponding amount to the concerned schools.

The P10.3 billion is part of the Higher Education Development Fund (HEDF) allocated to the CHED, The fund came from the earnings of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) and travel tax. CHEd’s total unpaid dues for the school year 2021-2023 amounted to P2.1 billion..

In the House of Representatives, Northern Samar Rep. Paul Daza said the P10.3 billion is an earmarked fund by operations of law and cannot be used outside of its specified purpose

According to Lubaton, the implementation of the UniFAST went smoothly during the early years of the program, but problems started to come out during school year (SY) 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 after CHED failed to remit the law-mandated funding for student scholars.

“Chairman De Vera had only paid and given the tuition fee in the amount of P10,000 for SY 2021-2022 but the P20,000 living allowances of students per semester for about two years now has not been paid up to the present,” he said, adding that a request for payment for academic year (AY) 2022-2023 but was ignored.

Lubaton added that the CHED has closed for two years UniFAST portal for validation of student scholars, which resulted in an increase in the number of students dropping out due to financial difficulties providing for their school fees and other needs.

The educational institutions also have financial difficulties in sustaining their operations, specifically in the payment of salaries of school staff, teachers and other personnel providing services.

Just recently, according to Lubaton, the UniFAST portal was opened after two years of closure but, at the same time, CHED also issued a new memorandum order implementing changes in UniFAST guidelines by eliminating the original provisions stating that areas with state colleges and universities-local colleges can accept students who will automatically be part of the UnifFAST scholarship program.

“Now, what will happen to students who were already enrolled but have not paid yet the tuition/school fees for they are hoping that they will be granted scholarship by UbniFAST thru CHED and they are expecting that upon validation, their names will be included in the said list, otherwise, many students will be displaced and will no longer be covered by the scholarship program for CHED,” it further said.