What say you, Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) chairman Prospero de Vera?

The Commission on Audit (CoA) has flagged the CHEd for more than P1 billion worth of scholarship grants that were either unreleased, unclaimed, or belatedly given to student beneficiaries the P1,036,411,617.35 allocated to CHEd for scholarship grants, the lion’s share, amounting to P468,547,650.75, was not paid or released to 430 higher education institutions and 183 scholars and beneficiaries for a period of up to 546 days or nearly two years.

“The delays in the release of the scholarship grants deprived the scholars of their financial assistance, which considerably affected the supposed support for their educational needs,” the CoA said.

State auditors also found that P9.1 million of the scholarship funds, intended for the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) for the first semester of academic year 2020-2021 remained unclaimed as of yearend 2023.

CHEd officials explained to the auditors that the backlog was due to some grantees having graduated, others were no longer enrolled, and a few had either transferred to other schools or dropped out.

Nonetheless, the state auditors brushed aside the explanations of the CHEd officials.

“This defeated the purpose of the financial assistance programs and deprived the scholars and grantees of the timely receipt of their respective scholarship benefits, which considerably affected them,” the CoA stated.

Audit findings further revealed several lapses in CHEd’s implementation and disbursement of scholarship funds, including overpayments or double payments aggregating to P1.5 billion to student beneficiaries of the CHEd Scholarship Programs (CSP).

The audit team discovered that an overpayment of P232,500, the third-largest chunk of the CSP’s funds, was made to 13 students who were also grantees of the Tulong Dunong Program-TES, resulting in the duplication of payments.

Additionally, the bulk of CSP funds, amounting to P875,000, was disbursed to 16 CSP grantees who were not enrolled in priority courses, a requirement for qualified beneficiaries.

As a result, the CoA ordered CHEd to refund the excessive payments made to student beneficiaries and to implement a sound internal control system in the processing of financial benefits to safeguard the government funds against loss.

A former CHEd scholar interviewed by DAILY TRIBUNE said that her scholarship grants were consistently delayed by two years, so much so that she received her last subsidy two years after she had graduated, when she was already working.

“CHEd has been known to reach out to scholars, but it’s clear that it has to do a better job than it’s been doing under chairman De Vera,” she said.

CHEd was created by Republic Act 7722, also known as the Higher Education Act of 1994, as an independent and collegial body attached to the Office of the President for administrative purposes.

Critics of the present CHEd leadership — namely De Vera — have raised the concern that the fixed term of the CHEd chair does not serve to motivate its top official to fulfill the agency’s mandate.

DAILY TRIBUNE sought a reaction from De Vera on the CoA findings, but as in past efforts to reach out to him on other matters concerning CHEd, he did not respond to the request for a comment.

Previously, this paper repeatedly sought his comment on the apparent violation by a maritime school and a manning agency of a CHEd memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the Maritime Industry Authority.

That MoA barred maritime schools from allowing manning agencies to facilitate for a fee the training deployment of their cadet students on local ships.

The only response DAILY TRIBUNE received from the seemingly irked De Vera on the MoA issue was for the aggrieved parties to file a formal complaint.

“Where is the complaint letter? So why are you asking CHEd to comment if there is no complaint?” De Vera asked a reporter of this paper.

The MoA violation issue stemmed from Marine World Maritime Services being implicated in a maritime student’s complaint over the delay in the release of training certificates.

The complaint was raised in DAILY TRIBUNE’s digital show Usapang OFW.

Samuel Batalla, executive director of Marina’s Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, explained then that maritime schools should directly engage with shipping companies for student training, and not involve third-party manning agencies, especially for domestic voyages.

He emphasized that the only time manning agencies are allowed is for international voyages. The complaint arose after a cadet paid P35,000 for training provided by Starhorse Shipping Lines but faced delays in receiving his certificate.

Marine World Maritime Services, which allegedly handled the payment, threatened legal action against DAILY TRIBUNE when asked about the case. Batalla stressed that maritime schools should already include shipboard training fees in the tuition. Investigation of the company revealed it may not have been SEC-registered.

On the CoA report, CHEd was also called out for granting P7,500 to scholars whose General Weighted Average (GWA) fell below the required minimum, as well as awarding P15,000 to students whose scholarships were already terminated. 

The audit team warned that this constitutes irregular expenditure.

Hence, the CoA ordered CHEd to refund the excessive payments made to the student beneficiaries as well as execute a sound internal control system in the processing of financial benefits of students to safeguard government funds against loss.

In response, CHEd informed auditors that there are now systems in place to mitigate or entirely eradicate the “human errors” or double payments, including the development of a separate system for the regular scholarships of CHEd MIMAROPA.

As for the double payment to student beneficiaries, the CHEd explained that one of the scholar’s grades was miscalculated by the previous education supervisor but he was already terminated from CSP in the second semester of Academic Year 2020-2021. 

“Then he was assisted with TDP and received an amount of P7,500. It should be noted that TDP does not have a GWA requirement,” the CHEd told CoA.