Thank you very much for that kind introduction.

I endured four years of college lectures, so you can just imagine how excited I am to finally return the favor, and this time torture you with a winding—and windy—speech only a senator can inflict.

Let me assure you that I will keep my end of the bargain.

I will not exceed the 20 minutes allotted to me, even if it is short by senatorial standards. Telling a politician to be economical with words is like asking an alcoholic to limit himself to a teaspoon of beer.

I am speaking before an association whose history is intertwined with that of our country.

For example, 13 out of our 16 presidents were graduates of private colleges. Meaning, you have trained those who have run—or ruined—our country.

Industries were built by visionaries you taught. Commerce is being presided by persons you have tutored. The infrastructures which dot our land were erected by men you have educated.

You leaf through company reports, and chances are, the people who made profit first saw spreadsheets or blueprints in your classrooms.

Enter any hospital, and most likely the names in the directory of doctors in the lobby are also listed in the alumni roster of your institution.

To the millions who have gone abroad, their diplomas became their passports to better lives. If they can now go as far and as fast as their talent will bring them, we know who nurtured it.

You have helped built the intellectual prowess and the moral fiber of this nation.

If you look at it, these are the same objectives which energized your founders to start their own schools.

They were not driven by any monetary reward. Nor were they motivated by great yields on the life savings they have invested. In fact, most projected that they will lose their shirt on a risky enterprise.

Rather, each and every one of them was guided by the selfless desire to improve the lot of the nation.

In short, they—the Laurels, the Benitezes, the Reyeses, the Fabellas, the Aranetas, the Mapuas, the Jhocsons, the Dalupans, the Tamayos, the Duques, the Envergas, the Gullases, the Larrazabals, the Velezes, the Tirols, the Amatongs, the Torreses, the Dominicans, the Christian Brothers—were inspired by patriotism and not by profits.

When they established the schools, they looked into the future, and told themselves: We will train the people who will make it bright.

So today, let us put ourselves in their shoes and imagine the future.

At this point I can already read the thought bubbles percolating in your head. Malamang sasabihin ninyo: A visioning exercise? Hindi yata kaya gawin ng senador ‘yan.

To your doubts, I plead guilty. I admit that instead of having a 20/20 vision, we are gifted with 20/20 hindsight.

But allow me to try.

For example, I was given 20 minutes to speak, and 20 minutes for the open forum.

By the end of these 40 minutes, 136 babies would have been born in this land.

In five years, if 120 of the 136 babies born in the next 40 minutes would knock on doors of public schools, then we should see to it that classrooms, teachers, books, and chairs are waiting for them.

Total cost: About P4.8 million. Just for 120 babies. By any yardstick, a big postpartum financial headache.

Isa pang halimbawa, paglaki ng mga iyan, mahihilig yan sa unli-rice, kasi nga may rice-loving gene in our DNA. Each Filipino on the average eats 119 kilos of rice annually.

The 136 Pinoys will thus devour 16.1 tons of rice yearly. To produce this, we have to open up 7 hectares of land to irrigation, the size of about 166 basketball courts, at a cost of P1.4 million.

Remember, kanin lang ‘yan ng babies produced in 40 minutes.

So what’s the impact of babies born in 10 minutes to public finances? About P1.5 million to accommodate them in kindergarten and P350,000 to irrigate the land required to grow the rice they would need.

Kaya lang, we birth babies in assembly line fashion.

For 2017, our population will grow by about 1.63 million. By 2020, there will be 109.26 million of us.

In ten years, there will be 120.1 million crowding this sliver of land that typhoons hit first but investors choose last.

We are adding the population of one Singapore every 3 years and 4 months. In 10 years, our population will grow by 17.5 million, or the population of Denmark, Finland and Norway combined.

I am rattling off these numbers not to give you Malthusian nightmares but to describe the additional constituency government must serve, and for private schools, potential enrollees.

So the challenge of governance today is to prepare for 17.5 million more Filipinos in the next decade, who must be fed, clothed, schooled, kept healthy, secured, and given jobs. Minus the people who will be tokhanged.

On rice, we can increase imports or irrigate more lands for rice production at a rate of 77,595 hectares – or more than three times the size of Camiguin – every year, until 2027.

On water, because men bathe twice a day, and women thrice, and the car and the dog get shampooed too, we have to source, filter, and pipe in an additional 1.1 trillion liters of water a year by 2027.

On roads, we have to build 20,000 new kilometers. Carmageddon is coming. Motor vehicle registration is projected to rev up from 14.4 million units last year to 25 million by 2027.

On electricity, because per capita usage will rise to 1,100 kilowatt-hour annually by 2027, we have to commission the equivalent of two 100-megawatt plants every month for the next eight years.

Isang suggestion ko para makatulong ang Kongreso: Build a windmill in the Senate, and a methane gas plant in the House.

On hospital beds, we have to ideally install 195,000 more by 2027, to wipe out backlogs and to meet future needs.

We need technical people to build these. And do you think public schools can train the manpower needed for the future by themselves? Of course not. This is a burden that will fall on your shoulders, too.

Why? Because private schools and public schools are not rivals for market but should be partners for progress. They are not competitors for enrollees but collaborators in providing education for all.

Before I expound on this, let me give you a snapshot on the cost of public education. As taxpayers, you have the right to be informed on how much in the tax you pay for a bar of soap, cup of coffee, liter of gas goes to educating the youth.

For 2018, the national budget is P3.7 trillion. Lolobo ang budget natin by P1 trillion – trillion ha, not billion – in two years. And who pays for the budget? Not Digong, not Congress, not PDP-Laban, but taxpayers.

Yung mga tarpaulins sa kalsada, they announce the project and the sponsor but not the cost.

The fact is, while the budget contains the price tag of projects, it doesn’t state who the payer is—which is the taxpayer—because every peso the government spends, government picks from the taxpayer’s pocket first. Government gets the credit, but the taxpayer pays for it.

Of the P3.7 trillion national budget for 2018, P698 billion will go to the education sector: P613 billion to DepED, P6.9 billion to TESDA, P13.5 billion to CHED and P64.6 billion to state colleges and universities.

Ibig sabihin: About 19 centavos for every budget peso is earmarked for education.

Or you can view it this way, for every one peso deducted from your paycheck every kinsenas as withholding tax, 19 centavos will eventually be funneled to schools.

Because of our burgeoning population, DepED has become a behemoth.

Daily payroll niya ay halos P1 billion a day na, or almost P365 billion, next year.

It is also a big consumer of cement and newsprint. This year, it will build 47,492 classrooms and buy 58.8 million textbooks, and hopefully none will be Wow Mali books printed on papel de lambot.

Ano ngayon ang annual cost per DepED student? P28,340

And we don’t resort to printing money to finance it; we get it from taxpayers.

The annual salary of an entry-level Teacher 1 of P321,180 is equivalent to the excise tax paid on 73,834 liters of gasoline.

The P1.2 million peso cost of a classroom is equivalent to taxes on 153,257 bottles of beer.

If a barangay, for example, will volunteer to pay for a P1 million science lab solely from the taxes on the cigarettes they will consume, then they will have to puff 800,000 sticks to raise the revenue needed.

If a P5 million high school or an SUC covered court will be solely built from the taxes paid on instant noodles, then its students will have to help themselves to at least 10 million packs of just-add-water pancit canton.

Ano ngayon ang average annual per student subsidy ng state universities and colleges?

On a 2016 enrollment of 1.5 million, and a budget of P58 billion, it comes down to an average P38,000 per student.

But not all SUC students are funded equally. Not all SUCs are subsidized the same.

In the top tier are military schools. PMA spends about P700,000 to produce one soldier. But for a P60,000 national government subsidy, the Batangas State University can already produce one engineer.

UP will spend P711,000 to produce one political scientist, but the Philippine State College of Aeronautics will only need P50,760 to graduate one aeronautical engineer.

Bulacan State University has been producing board topnotchers at a per student cost of as low as P38,468.

Not all big schools with a big budget footprint are in big cities. The taxpayer subsidy for a four-year course in Batanes State College is P300,000. It is P333,440 in MSU Tawi-Tawi and P513,748 in Basilan State College.

What I have rattled off are government subsidies. How much then, is the student equity, meaning the tuition he pays out of his pocket?

For SUCs, the national average is P201 per unit for a baccalaureate degree. Private colleges charge thrice more on the average, at P610 per unit.

But we know that taxpayer subsidy distorts the picture in the case of SUCs. Actually, it deflates the student’s personal contribution.

And here comes the newly-signed Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education, which would wipe clean almost the entire student equity.

For the record, I was batting for the tuition component only, the basic matriculation, and let the student pay for other fees.

My position is that if he wants to use the pool, then the user-pay principle should apply, as a matter of fairness to the taxpayers who foot the bill.

I was advocating for tuition waivers because the budget footprint is relatively small and affordable.

For example, for 2017, what will be foregone if limited to tuition only, is P8 billion, and about P8 billion also for next year.

But if everything was loaded into the gravy train, like the euphemistically called “development fee”, meaning capital expenditures, the inevitable result is a bigger tab to be picked by taxpayers.

And I have to concede the points raised by economic managers that this all-in Noah’s Ark approach will have some serious financial issues to be addressed.

It is on record, too, and your officers know about it, that I lobbied for the participation and inclusion of private schools in the bill the Senate was hammering.

I believe that it would be wrong to fence the law with “do not enter” signs addressed to private education.

I have always believed that the BPO model would be applicable to private schools as well, wherein government will bulk-buy unutilized seats, and thus provide education to many.

If the seat comes discounted, all the three parties win: the student gets topnotch education at a fraction of the regular cost, the government saves money, and private schools get subsidy.

So if I were government, from a resource management view, why would I pass up the chance to send a student to a private school for a fraction of the cost of subsidizing one government student in Batanes?

Actually, this template has been in existence for decades in the basic education sector, under the successful GASTPE Program. There is in fact, at present, a Private Education Student Financial Assistance window under CHED.

The private sector’s participation is enshrined in Section 7 of the new law. That section creates the Tertiary Education Subsidy for Filipino students within the UniFAST Law framework.

A companion provision is Section 8, which creates a Student Loan Program for Tertiary Education.

Both programs do not discriminate as to where a student is enrolled.

These provisions were incorporated into the law out of the realization that many towns do not have a SUC or an LGU-run LUC, and the only tertiary school is privately-owned.

If the bill speaks of access, then it will be disenfranchising students in a town where the only tertiary education institution is a private one.

Another reason which prompted their inclusion is the fear that free tuition in public colleges will trigger a migration from private schools to public schools, which could drive up government cost.

The law forfeits its noble intention if it is a death warrant of private schools in disguise. We don’t want to provoke a stampede that will trample private schools to death.

To be candid, these mandates may not be fully-funded immediately, given the state of public revenues.

But what is important is that there exists a statute which requires the government to include private schools under the canopy of affordable tertiary education.

Even funding a fraction of the mandates, as a start, is better than zero.

But whatever the final figure is, it will be money well spent.

What we spend for schools should not be viewed as unrecoverable expenses. Rather, they should be treated as investments with high returns.

Some will see the billions spent as deficit numbers. Let us see them for what they really are: as means to realize dreams.

A nation’s progress depends on the quality of its human capital. Education dictates whether it prospers or it remains poor.

The battle for the future is being waged in classrooms of today, both private and public. We cannot win the future if we splurge on war and yet economize in education.

But building the country’s talent pool is not the responsibility of families alone. Government must provide equity.

And the national budget is full of fat and frivolous expenses that can be liposuctioned and rechanneled to programs that will make quality tertiary education affordable.

There are large swaths in the budget which remain unspent or hard to spend.

Yung 2016 budget for “personal services,” o yung pasweldo sa kawani at pensyon sa retirado, P746 billion lang ang nagasta out of a budget of P794 billion. Magkano ang natira? P48 billion.

Yung sa Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses, the obligations reached P1.011 trillion out of the P1.127 trillion provided for in the 2016 budget. Magkano natira? P116 billion.

Yung pambayad sa utang, over din ang request. Humingi ang nakaraang administrasyon ng P392 billion to service this, pero P302 lang ang nagasta. Magkano natira? P90 billion.

Yung sa capital outlays, na kasama ang infrastructure, ang total available budget ay P1.17 trillion in 2016, pero ang na-obligate ay P823 billion. Magkano natira? P352 billion.

In all, unreleased appropriations reached P63.43 billion in 2016, on top of the unobligated allotments of P544.53 billion.

Kung makupad at mabagal ang pag-gasta ng mga ahensya, e di ibigay ito sa isang programa na garantisadong magugugol – at yan ay sa larangan ng tertiary education.

I am confident that Congress can find the ways and the means to fund the law – including mandates which private schools can join, even on a small, pilot basis.

But for me the more important word in the law is not the word ‘free’ but ‘quality.’

Budget must be linked to results. And if state subsidy is obligatory, then it makes reforms in the SUCs mandatory.

Provincial SUCs must federate into one Regional SUC. Appropriations must be conditional on improvements – in all areas.

Admission to SUCs must follow a uniform qualifying exam. We cannot raise the bar in this school, lower it there, and make it disappear in another.

My dear friends, to you who teach our young:

Let us continue our dialogue, our exchange of ideas, our engagement. Your support is needed. Your inputs lead to better policies. Include us among those you must teach.

Let us sustain our partnership because education is such a vital undertaking to be left to government alone.