Missed Allocation
by The Editorial Board
The University of the Philippines (UP), the purported University of the People, is set to suffer its biggest budget cut in at least 22 years. From last year’s budget of P24.77 billion, the 2025 budget falls short by 8.4%, leaving the university with just P22.7 billion. This chronic state underfunding is, without a question, a harsh blow on UP’s public character. But, with Angelo Jimenez administration’s approach in budget proposals that centers on big-ticket projects, the circumstances are even faring worse.
Though the budget for Personal Services (PS) and Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) jumped by 2.7%, this is grossly inadequate to address the UP constituents’ call for higher salaries and subsidies, especially against the backdrop of skyrocketing prices of commodities. This measly hike fails to match the projected inflation rate of 3.2% in 2025 that will only worsen the country’s socio-economic position.
While regular operating expenses are struggling with a bare increase, university’s capital outlay suffers an 86% drop, which would mean that infrastructure projects would be suspended unless UP could outsource funds for its completion. Among the locally-funded projects that did receive funding are the restoration and renovation of the Lara Hall at UP Manila (P64.7 million), the construction of the International Convention Center at UP Open University (P72.8 million), the completion of the UP Visayas extension building in Antique (P30 million), the development of UP New Clark City (P20 million), and the construction of the Sports Development Center at UP Cebu (P20 million). Only P15.9 million has been allocated for the much-needed UP Mindanao Sports Complex in Davao City, leaving the project far from complete.
UP gets blinded on building numerous infrastructures, losing sight of what the university truly needs. Its ambitious projects only lead to dramatic cuts, yet Jimenez continues to engineer this style of prioritizing one-time-big-time projects. With the scheme of the current administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to prioritize self-serving interests over genuine national development, UP should have known better. Budget proposals that UP submits every year should maintain a balanced approach and reflect the holistic needs of the sectors it is meant to serve. It should not provide space for big-ticket projects, the way Jimenez drafted his budget proposals since the beginning of his term, if equitable salaries and subsidies remain unrealized for UP workers and students alike.
Aside from a higher salary and subsidy being sidetracked, UP also fails to take into account constituent units’ varying needs and UP Manila is no exception. Thousands of students have walked through the steps of Rizal Hall yet efforts for its complete restoration remain elusive. In 2024’s general appropriations, UP Manila received a P260 million funding for the completion of structural and architectural work of Rizal Hall, but it seems that its completion is far from over as no budget was given to the more than a hundred-year-old dilapidated building. Whether the state deliberately axed the Rizal Hall’s restoration in the 2025 appropriations or Jimenez failed to include this in the budget proposal, the fact that it is taking so long that College of Arts and Sciences students and other UP Manila students taking general education courses settle with limited classrooms is a statement that UP does not set its priorities straight towards restoring one of its founding buildings.
Philippine General Hospital (PGH) is a home for over a million needy Filipinos who seek affordable and accessible healthcare. But with the multiple recent fires that struck the hospital, the security of patients and health workers is put into a question. In last year’s appropriations, PGH was allocated P260 million for the establishment of a central block fire suppression and detection system and life safety plan following a fire that hit the hospital last May 16, 2021, leading to 500 patients needing to be evacuated, including 156 COVID-19 patients, and damages amounting to P50 million.
Yet, despite this allocation, there have been no updates on the procurement process — no contractors have been listed, and progress seems to have stalled. But, this slow process of procurement is just one side of the coin. In the previous year, PGH suffered three fire incidents with a common pattern of faulty electrical wiring as the cause. While the hospital is struggling with the highly uneven healthcare worker-to-patient ratio, they are also battered by fires, yet the administration fails to recognize this.
What UP System and UP Manila are getting are scant amounts and nothing but unfinished work. Several administrations and UP presidencies have passed, yet they fail to adopt an approach of providing funding to the country’s national university that matches to its actual conditions. To become the UP that truly serves, as Jimenez was so keen on highlighting, his style of budget proposals should reflect a higher budget for the university’s operating expenses — PS and MOOE — and drop his overemphasis on capital outlay. Instead of allowing the commercialization of UP spaces, the UP administration needs to prioritize projects that are the lifeline of the UP community and eliminate the bureaucratic processes that entangle the projects from its immediate completion. ▼
