Republic of the Philippines

UNIVERSITY OF RIZAL SYSTEM

Pililla, Rizal

GRADUATE SCHOOL
Doctorate Degree
First Semester, School Year 2022-2023

Course Title: EM 402

Course Description: Economics and Politics of Education
Student: Redentor D. Morilla
Professorial Lecturer: Dr. Teresita Paredes
Date: October 1, 2022
Topic: Current News

NewsPeso depreciation: Winners, losers, benefits

By: Cristina Eloisa Baclig - Content Researcher Writer / @inquirerdotnetINQUIRER.net /
04:49 PM September 30, 2022

MANILA, Philippines—These past few weeks, news about the continuing slide of the Philippine
peso has brought concern to many about the country’s economic situation, with some weighing
the benefits and risks of depreciation.

On Tuesday (September 27), the local currency ended at P58.99 against the US dollar—a
centavo shy from the P59:$1 level—marking a new record low. The local currency continued to
sink to new lows in September, starting with P56.42:$1 (Sept. 01), P56.77:$1 (Sept. 02),
P56.999:$1 (Sept. 05), P57:$1 (Sept. 06), P57.135:$1 (Sept. 07), P57.18:$1 (Sept. 08), P57.43:$1
(Sept. 16), P57.48:$1 (Sept. 20), P58:$1 (Sept. 21), P58.49:$1 (Sept. 22), and P58.50:$1 (Sept.
23).

The peso had already depreciated by 15.7 percent so far this year, losing P7.991 to the US dollar
since closing at P50.999:$1 at the end of 2021. Most of the peso’s losses so far this year
happened in the past three months, when the peso started depreciating swiftly after hitting 53:$1
on June 10.

Inflation and its Impact on Students’ Daily Lives

The main way inflation reduces the value of a student’s dollar is by raising the prices of
everyday essentials, such as food, shelter, and transportation. “Colleges factor these expenses
into their cost of attendance, which dictates aid/loans awarded and available to students annually.
But if inflation impacts these things after COA/loan money has been approved and awarded for
the year, this can make those dollars’ purchasing power go down vs. what was intended,” says
Meagan Landress, a Certified Student Loan Professional and consultant at Student Loan Planner.

For students who often rely on their college’s calculation of the overall cost of attendance, how
hard inflation hits depends on timing. Those starting or continuing school this fall will likely see
their tuition continue to rise. Tuition is one of students’ biggest expenses and has already been
locked in at these inflationary levels, says Robert Farrington, founder of The College Investor.
On top of that, many schools will not increase their grant budgets even as they increase their
costs of attendance. Instead, the new, higher costs of attendance will make students eligible to
take out more in loans to cover rising costs. With so many younger Americans already buried in
student debt, a prolonged inflationary spiral threatens to burden future generations with even
greater amounts of debt.

How Does Inflation Affect Student Loans?

Inflation will impact student borrowing by two overlapping groups: those seeking to take out a
loan to cover their current or future education expenses, and those who have completed their
education and have to pay down student loan debt. For the first group, there isn’t much good
news. The knock-on effect of Fed rate hikes is that interest rates for all kinds of loans also rise.

Student loan rates are no different. Since federal fixed-interest loan rates are set in May of each
year, loans taken out now are already more expensive than loans that were taken out before July
1, 2022. The current interest rate on an undergraduate student loan is 4.99%, up from 3.73% last
year. “It’s important to note that federal student loans are a fixed rate based on the year you
borrow them… so the current rates are fixed from July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023,” says
Farrington. Farrington warns rates are likely to keep growing this year. Assuming the trend
continues into the next year, this would mean any fixed loans taken out after next June will likely
have even higher rates. On the bright side, for graduates repaying their loans, inflation would, in
theory, make their existing student loans cheaper.

Sara Duterte to fix education in 6 years if given P100 billion. Is this enough?
SEP 28, 2022 11:00 AM PHT
BONZ MAGSAMBOL
Sara Duterte to fix education in 6 years if given P100 billion. Is this enough?

What's the basis of Vice President Sara Duterte when she said she would fix the country's
education sector in six years if given P100 billion more?

MANILA, Philippines – Just like her father, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara
Duterte made a bold declaration about solving an important issue. The daughter, this time,
vowed to solve education woes in the country should the Department of Education (DepEd) be
given an extra P100 billion for its 2023 budget. In front of lawmakers dominated by allies of the
Marcos administration, Duterte said that she asked President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to give her
P100 billion more on top of the P710 billion of the DepEd under the National Expenditure
Program (NEP).

“We talked to the President and told him that, ‘if you give me 100 billion, I will solve all the
problems of basic education.’ And that is what I want to reiterate as well, to Congress and the
House of Representatives, if you give me, give us, the people here sitting in front of you, P100
billion, we will be able to solve the problem in six years,” Duterte said during the House budget
deliberations on September 14. There were no objections from lawmakers when Duterte made
the pitch. They swiftly ended the deliberations on the DepEd proposed 2023 budget in just two
hours, with only seven lawmakers interpellating Duterte. In the past, big agencies, like DepEd,
usually took eight to 10 hours to defend their budget.

“Much is at stake, and we cannot address our learning losses without sufficient resources. The
government must also equip our teachers with the right skills and training and focus on programs
that are student-centered,” PBED’s executive director Lovelaine Basillote said. Deputy Minority
Leader ACT Teachers Representative France Castro was among the seven lawmakers who were
able to grill Duterte about the proposed budget. But she was disappointed by how it turned out
since she didn’t get the answers she wanted to hear in terms of addressing the learning crisis. For
Castro, the P100-billion extra budget Duterte was asking for was “baseless.”

“I didn’t have the enough time to rebut that. So P100 billion is not enough for an education
budget, in fact, in their presentation, they said it should be 6% of the GDP. Then why only P100
billion? If you are going to go by their presentation, 6% of the GDP is around P1.4 trillion, so
this 100 billion is small so how did she come up with that amount?” Castro said in a Rappler
Talk interview on September 16.

“It should be more because there’s a lot of things to spend on… So it should be more than P100
billion and a hundred billion is baseless for me,” Castro said. To head the agency tasked to fix
the country’s education system would not be an easy job. Experts have said that the country’s
poor education quality is a result of decades of neglect and underinvestment.

Educational psychologist Lizamarie Olegario said that it is difficult to check the feasibility of
Duterte’s plan when she has not detailed yet what it is. “Basically, how is she going to do it? She
can’t just get the money then promise something without clear steps on how to address the
complex problem,” said Olegario, also an associate professor at the University of the Philippines,
College of Education.

Duterte has yet to bare her concrete plans for the education sector, except for adapting the Basic
Education Development Plan (BEDP) 2030 that was actually prepared by the previous
administration. It was the first long-term plan of the DepEd for basic education, covering formal
education from 5 to 18 years old and non-formal education for youth and adults. During an
interview with Christian Esguerra’s Facts First, Basillote said that Duterte’s request for P100
billion more “matches” the financial plan that was reflected in the BEDP, which is at around
P800 billion. “In a way, it matches the plan. But as to whether it will really solve the crisis, I am
not so sure. What does she actually mean by solving the problems in basic education? What does
success look like to her?” Basillote asked.

During the DepEd’s budget deliberations at the House of Representatives, Duterte was asked
why she was insistent on pushing for the mandatory Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC)
instead of proactively solving the learning crisis. The Vice President replied by saying that there
are existing legislations for learning recovery, there was no law for mandatory ROTC. “Ang
primary na legislative agenda ng DepEd kasama na rin ang President, si President Marcos, ay
itong mandatory ROTC sa Senior High School. So why is that? Kaya nga nagtanong ako, ‘asan
doon ‘yung concrete plans for our problems on reading comprehension kasi ‘yun ang pressing
problem ‘di ba?” Castro said.

(The primary legislative agenda of DepEd and President Marcis is making ROTC mandatory in
Senior High School. So why is that? That’s why I asked, where is her concrete plans for our
problems in reading comprehension because that is the pressing problem, right?) The learning
crisis in the Philippines
But what exactly are the problems that Duterte needs to solve as the sitting education secretary?

In her first few weeks as the DepEd secretary, Duterte issued a strong order mandating all
schools to return to face-to-face classes, a move seen by advocates as crucial for learning
recovery. Despite a classroom shortage, the Vice President said that the school opening was a
“victory.”

When classes opened on August 22, the country lacked 91,000 classrooms for the school year
2022-2023. To make up for it, class shiftings have been implemented and blended learning was
allowed in some areas. Aside from the P100-billion budget Duterte was asking for, a total of
P150 million in confidential funds was also allocated under the NEP. This is on top of the P500
million in confidential funds Duterte also sought for the Office of the Vice President. Critics said
the P650-million confidential funds could have been allocated to build classrooms, address the
shortage of textbooks, and hire more personnel. (READ: Security and surveillance? Duterte
defends DepEd’s P150-million confidential funds)

“P150 million can already procure 150,000 armchairs, or about three million textbooks, or 4,286
laptops for teachers at P35,000 per unit. It can go a long way in providing for the lacking
learning and teaching materials that hamper education recovery,” said Alliance of Concerned
Teachers (ACT) chairperson Vladimer Quetua. “If the Deped is really concerned with the safety
and security of our schools, it could have allotted the amount to hire security personnel in
schools, which right now are sorely lacking. It could have allocated the amount to DepEd’s child
protection program which now has zero budget,” he added. But school infrastructure is just part
of the bigger problem, global assessments showed the dismal performance of Filipino students in
school. For instance, 72% of students aged 15 years old were “low achievers” in Reading, Math,
and Science in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Meanwhile, a recent World Bank report showed that 9 in 10 Filipino students aged 10 years old
struggle to read a simple text. Dr. Ed Fermin of the National Teachers College pointed out that
learning poverty in the country is exacerbated by overworked teachers who have to perform tasks
other than teaching.

“If Vice President Sara Duterte will be true to what she said that she would lessen or remove the
administrative functions of teachers so they could focus and concentrate on assessing and
delivery of learning, I think that would be a good way to jumpstart the system and make sure that
teachers really spend more time looking at how are our learners coping,” he said. “Our teachers
are overworked,” Fermin added. (READ: Overworked teachers among causes of high learning
poverty level in PH – experts)

While Marcos said a lot of promising policies for the education sector during his first State of the
Nation Address, teachers’ welfare was left out. Teachers have been asking the government for a
salary raise to no avail. Duterte said that increasing their salaries would encourage private school
teachers to migrate to public schools, which may trigger the closure of more private schools.
Based on DepEd data, some 425 private schools have permanently closed since 2020.