Members of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) along with students from various schools and universities held a protest action in front of the University of Santo Tomas at the country’s University Belt to denounce this month’s rounds of tuition consultations and increases.

The demonstration included students from from the , Far Eastern University (FEU), Technological Institute of the Philippines (TIP), and Lyceum University of the Philippines.

The school owners of these schools has already scheduled tuition consultations for this month despite an appeal from Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Commissioner Emmanuel Angeles not to increase tuition for the coming school year in light of the on-going global financial crisis.

“These ‘consultations’ are misnomers for they only serve as a venue for the administration to announce next school year’s tuition and other fee increases. The responses of the students are usually taken for granted by the administration, which is hell-bent at increasing their school’s fees,” said Terry Ridon, spokesperson of the LFS.

The protesters also slammed the CHED, which they described as “coddlers of capitalist educators.”

“The ongoing consultations in various universities are proof that CHED Chairman Angeles’ appeal is nothing more than a worthless publicity stunt aimed at hiding the government’s deregulated tuition policy,” said Ridon.

Moreover, the LFS, along with other student groups, denounced the Commissioner’s appeal, explaining that what they was a tuition moratorium and the scrapping of CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) 13.

Ridon explained that the CHED releases tuition increase guidelines through Memorandum Orders and the current policy is CMO 13, which deregulates tuition increases by removing a tuition ceiling.

“An appeal is worthless in a deregulated tuition environment. Moreover, the current CMO only requires tuition increases to go through consultations. Miscellaneous fees and other exorbitant fees need not pass scrutiny from the students, said Ridon.

Ridon explained that school-owners use the policy to implement redundant and exorbitant fees such as varsity fees, sports development fee, air conditioning fee, Internet fee, and others.

A protest action in the University Belt, to be participated by students from other schools like the University of Santo Tomas, University of the East, and Far Eastern University, was scheduled later in the afternoon. ###

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