TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Rep. Allen Jesse C. Mangaoang is pushing for the establishment of a provincial office of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) in the province to speed up the delivery of the agency’s services to the students from the different towns.
House Bill (HB) No. 730 authored by Congressman Mangaoang stated that the CHED shall determine the organizational structure and staffing pattern for the CHED–Kalinga provincial office and submit the same to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) for approval.
Further, the CHED Chairperson shall immediately include in the agency’s program the operationalization of the CHED-Kalinga provincial office upon approval of the said bill.
Mangaoang proposed that the amount necessary to carry out the provisions of the proposed law shall be included in the annual general appropriations act.
Within 60 days from the approval of the proposed law, the CHED shall issue the necessary rules and regulations for its effective implementation by the CHED.
The lawmaker pointed out that the measure was proposed to provide the people, especially the young and upcoming students, easy access for their educational concerns, such as processing applications for scholarship grants and securing documents for employment purposes among others.
In the Cordillera, he claimed that the CHED regional office is situated in La Trinidad, Benguet, which is more than 300 kilometers from Kalinga, and the same covers the provinces of Benguet, Kalinga, Mountain Province, Ifugao, Apayao, Abra and Baguio City and that Kalinga and Apayao are the farthest from the regional office.
Moreover, he disclosed that the travel time from Kalinga to the CHED regional office in La Trinidad, Benguet is more than 8 to 12 hours, thus, the stakeholders from the academe, staff and administrators of higher education institutions, as well as the students have to travel the said distance and spend huge amount of time and money to reach and transact with the CHED regional office.
HB 730 is a refiled bill from the 18th Congress which has been approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
He anchored the supposed passage of the bill on the constitutional provision that provides that the State recognizes the vital role of the youth to nation building and education plays an important part to protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social wellbeing.
In addition, Mangaoang argued that education is widely seen as a tool to improve the socio-economic status of a person, and that better accessibility to education will not only improve the economic life of the people but even their social and political conditions.
However, the congressman emphasized that though not all of the youth get to reach the tertiary level of education due to financial constraints, many of the poor students have to drop out from college due to lack of access to government agencies and programs tasked to prioritize education as a catalyst for change and progress.
The bill is now pending on the House committee on higher education for further needed action.