Senator Risa Hontiveros called out the Commission on Higher Education after complaints that roughly 400 students still have not yet received their education subsidies under the agency's scholarship program.

According to the lawmaker, there have been claims that "ghost scholars" use placeholder names to obtain tuition reimbursement from students who have already graduated, even though they are no longer eligible for the program.

"So if not the students, who are really cashing in? This is a serious allegation that needs to be investigated by CHEd," Hontiveros said.

The opposition solon also questioned the CHEd during the agency's Senate budget hearing on Tuesday about its flawed memorandum of agreement between UniFAST, CHEd and the Development Bank of the Philippines which resulted in P1 billion in parked funds since 2019 and prohibited the program from being implemented.

"We are not talking about coins here. Have you returned this parked P1 billion to the National Treasury? What happened to its interest earnings? Are there any other parked funds for free education that are still pending?" the lady senator asked.

She also presented screenshots emailed to her office of the official UniFAST NCR and Region 10 Facebook pages, whose admins pushed students to use the hashtag #IStandWithCHEDUniFast after the senator called for an investigation into the agency's P7 billion in "questionable releases."

Comments underneath the post showed more complaints from the students, according to Hontiveros.

"It seems that even on the official social media pages, they have been gaslighted that if these anomalies are investigated, their free education will be halted," Hontiveros said.

Meantime, CHEd chairperson Prospero de Vera III on Wednesday stressed that there are no "ghost scholars" of the agency's free education program.

"As far as I'm concerned, there are no ghost beneficiaries of free higher education," De Vera told Daily Tribune in a phone interview.

"Why ghost students if they have not received their subsidy? They are not ghost students. When you say ghost students that means they are not legitimate beneficiaries of free higher education. They are using the wrong term," De Vera said.

The CHEd official said that Hontiveros should give the names of ghost students and evidence to CHEd so that they can investigate it.

"That is the only way to resolve if they are not qualified to receive government fund. Is that what CHEd is being accused of? I have not received any letter, a list, or any evidence accusing CHEd of giving money to students who are not qualified," De Vera said.

He, however, admitted that there was a delay in the distribution of subsidies to the students because they only got the money from the Department of Budget and Management two weeks ago.

"How can I give you if there is no money to give? We got the notice of cash allocation and disbursement of fund a week and a half ago only. So, we're only paying now the second semester of academic year 2021-2022 because we only got the money now," De Vera explained.

De Vera said they cannot disburse the money on the early part of the year because there was an election ban.