KILOS NA LABAN SA BUDGET CUTS!

A Hundred Thousand Signature Campaign for our RIGHT to QUALITY and FREE EDUCATION
We, students, councils and organizations, educators, faculty unions and associations, employees and school administrators, and parents nationwide are outraged over Benigno Aquino IIIs budget cuts on education and other social services. Our administration seems deaf over the constant calls for greater subsidy for education, health and social services in general, and has persisted in ballooning the budget for debt payment, military and dole-outs. The numbers speak for themselves. Last year, the operations budget of State Universities and Colleges have experienced a phenomenal cut that amounted to more than 1 billion pesos. For 2012, an accumulated amount of P569.8 million will be slashed in 50 SUCs. The maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) of 45 schools will be slashed by P250.9 million. The budget for Personal Services (PS) has also been decreased by P403.3 million despite the supposed automatic increase in PS for each year, due to the Salary Standardization Law. The zero allotment for Capital Outlay (CO) is carried on to this year. Meaning that despite the large number of youth that SUCs are unable to accommodate, the government will not support the construction of new buildings and facilities. While the budget for public tertiary education is continually undermined, the dire budget shortage experienced by the basic education sector and the Department of Education has again been overlooked in this years budget. The 238.8 billion pesos allocated for basic education is far from 6% GDP allocation recommended by the United Nations. Far from sufficient, the token increase of P30 billion has been allocated to the Department of Education is for Personal Services. Not as an exercise of political will, but an automatic increase mandated by law. The shortages in books, chairs, rooms and teachers will not even be dented by the current budget allocation. While the numbers say clearly that the government is not interested in spending for the youths future, the Aquino administration even proposed to add two years to basic education. We have seen that the haphazard addition of the Universal Kindergarten level without addressing the perennial shortages of basic education have resulted to 5 year old kids traumatized by the lack of facilities to accommodate their first touch with schooling. The Universal Kindergarten program needs P18 billion to hire teachers for the 2.3 million 5 year old kids but the government allocated only 1.9 billion for this. The Aquino government targets to build only 45,231 classrooms out of the 152,000 shortage. Only 13,000 new teachers will be hired despite the need for 103,000. The Aquino government also decided to slash the budget of hospitals and health services. The P44.4

KILOS NA LABAN SA BUDGET CUTS!

A Hundred Thousand Signature Campaign for our RIGHT to QUALITY and FREE EDUCATION
billion pesos allocated for health services is a far cry from the P90 billion actually needed to address only the most basic of the peoples health needs. The shortage is further highlighted if compared to the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation of 5% GDP of P440 billion. The operations budget of 55 public hospitals have been slashed by P363.7 million last year. There is no increase in the MOOE of public hospitals and even the budget for Personal Services (PS) has been slashed. Despite the obvious lack of health facilities for Filipinos nationwide, not a single peso has been allocated for the construction of new health facilities and hospitals. While the government is unwilling to spend for education and health, the budget allocation for debt payment, military and dole-outs continue to balloon. P357 billion is allocated for interest payments this year. Last year, the budget for debt payment experienced a phenomena increase of P80.9 billion. The budget for debt payment makes up for 70% of the whole national budget. The budget for the military increased from P104.7 billion to P107.9 billion this year. A huge allocation of P39.5 billion is appropriated to Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) dole-outs from only P10.9 billion in 2010 and P29.2 billion in 2011. We believe that the role of the government is to fund the needs of the people. In slashing and allocating meager budgets for education, health and social services in general, the Aquino government is clearly acting against the interest of the people. We urge members of Congress to oppose the education budget cuts and re-channel funds intended for debt-servicing, the military and dole-out programs to education, health and social services. We specifically call the attention of our respective representatives here in the Cordillera region to support our call for higher state subsidy for education and other basic social services. We appeal to our local government units (barangay, municipality, city and provincial) to express their support in this fight through resolution making and other ways. We call on every Filipino (parents, teachers, school administrators, faculty, employees, and every concerned citizen) to stand up and speak up against this injustice and defend the peoples right to education, health and proper service from the government. Let us demand this government to spend for the people and not use the peoples money in programs that are inversely beneficial to the people.

KILOS NA LABAN SA BUDGET CUTS!

A Hundred Thousand Signature Campaign for our RIGHT to QUALITY and FREE EDUCATION
We call on the Aquino government to reverse this injustice and fund the peoples future and welfare. With this, we aim to collect a hundred thousand signatures all over the Cordillera as a sign of support for our demand for higher education subsidy. Labanan ang budget cuts ng administrasyong Aquino! Ipaglaban ang mas mataas na budget sa Edukasyon, Kalusugan, at Serbisyo!

Name
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

School

Signature

KILOS NA LABAN SA BUDGET CUTS!

A Hundred Thousand Signature Campaign for our RIGHT to QUALITY and FREE EDUCATION

Name
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

School

Signature