12/10/2026
๐ก๐ข ๐ง๐ข ๐๐จ๐๐๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ง๐ฆ! ๐จ๐ฃ ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐จ๐๐๐๐ง ๐ก๐ข๐ช!
The UP Cebu Sciences Federation stands firm with the student body, faculty, and academic staff against state neglect and severe budget slashes, demanding a higher and sufficient budget for accessible and quality education and basic social services!
For decades, the crisis of public education in the Philippines has only deepened. In state universities and colleges (SUCs) across the country including but not limited to UP Cebu, students and staff contend daily with crumbling infrastructure, overcrowded learning spaces, insufficient laboratory equipment, and severely underfunded basic services. Instead of expanding capacity to accommodate our expanding youth demographic, the state continually forces educational institutions to survive on breadcrumbs.
Here in UP Cebu, the budget crisis cuts through the realities of every college. Across COS, CCAD, CSS, and SOM, we face chronic shortages of classrooms, equipment, student spaces, laboratories, and plantilla personnel, reflecting a broader systemic neglect. Forced to fight for limited slots and compete desperately for scholarships to cover the expense of day-to-day survival, the Iskolars of UPC and all across the system bear the brunt of a budget deficit that treats education as a privilege rather than a fundamental right.
This crisis is not an accidental oversight; it is the direct result of state priorities that favor elite interests over mass welfare. While government press releases preach commitment to youth empowerment and economic progress, the actual allocation of national resources tells a drastically different story. Every peso slashed from education, health, and basic social services is a deliberate choice to treat fundamental human rights as mere privileges reserved for those who can afford them.
๐๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ฐ ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ช๐ค ๐ง๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ด ๐จ๐ฐ? While classrooms deteriorate and student stipends face chronic delays, billions of pesos are systematically funneled into unchecked confidential and intelligence funds, interest servicing on foreign debts, and bloated bureaucratic spending. The hard-earned taxes extracted from peasant farmers, factory workers, and low-income families are squandered on corrupt machinery and state militarization instead of building the foundations of a self-sustaining nation.
The battle for a higher education budget cannot be isolated from the broader anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggles of the Filipino people. The same administrative apparatus that starves public schools is the same system that enforces landlessness among peasants, suppresses workers' demands for living wages, and allows foreign interests to dictate national economic policy. When public funds are stolen or diverted into corruption and debt, it is the working-class family that bears the heaviest burden.
We draw strength from the long history of the youth and student movement in the Philippines. From the brave leaders who defended campus autonomy during dark eras of state repression to the organizers fighting today against the commercialization of schooling, the Iskolar ng Bayan has always been a vital force in the struggle for national democracy. We carry their legacy forward by asserting that academic freedom and the right to learn are non-negotiable.
To demand a national budget that serves the people is to actively resist the semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions holding our country back. We do not simply demand bigger allocations for our own classrooms; we demand an entire reorientation of national priorities. Away from corruption, foreign domination, and militarism, and toward genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, and public welfare.
The time to act is now. Online declarations must translate into sustained, militant organizing in our classrooms, corridors, and communities. For as long as the state starves education while enriching corrupt bureaucrats, the youth will refuse to remain quiet. Let us arouse, organize, and mobilize the broadest ranks of students and workers until education is liberated from commercial interests and made accessible to every Filipino! Advance the struggle for a Nationalist, Scientific, and Mass-Oriented Education!
๐๐๐๐ฟ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ๐๐๐ผ๐, ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ๐!
๐๐๐๐ฟ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฟ๐๐๐ผ๐๐๐๐, ๐ฟ๐๐๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐๐๐ผ๐๐๐๐๐!
