THE House of Representatives on Wednesday night approved on second reading a measure that seeks to widen access to free tertiary education by strengthening the Tertiary Education Subsidy and opening a voucher pathway for qualified Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries who choose to study in private higher education and technical-vocational institutions.
House Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” A. Marcos said the bill is meant to ensure that academic potential among poor households does not stall at senior high school because tuition, fees and daily school costs remain out of reach.
Marcos said that the measure is part of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council Common Legislative Agenda, as the House under Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III moves priority reforms with urgency in a season when families want help they can actually use.
“Under Speaker Dy, we are pushing bills that speak the language of daily life, ‘yung ginhawang nararamdaman sa bahay, sa eskuwela at sa trabaho,” Marcos said.
The measure, House Bill (HB) No. 8476, is a substitute bill that reforms the Tertiary Education Subsidy program under the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act and introduces a voucher system for poor and academically qualified students who opt to study in private schools.
In his sponsorship speech, Tingog Rep. Jude Acidre, Char of the House Committee on Technical and Higher Education, framed the substitute bill as a practical clean-up of the Tertiary Education Subsidy, meant to remove the usual friction that keeps poor but capable students stuck at the gate.
“The substitute bill before us therefore seeks to strengthen the TES program through several key reforms,” Acidre expressed.
Acidre began with a priority lane for families already identified as most in need, so the support follows the student as soon as they clear admission.
“First, the measure prioritizes and automatically includes students from households under the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps in the Tertiary Education Subsidy once they qualify for admission to higher education institutions recognized by the Commission on Higher Education,” Acidre noted.
His reasoning was that the poorest families should not be made to prove their hardship twice, especially when the point of the program is to spare them from being priced out of school.
“If a student already belongs to a household officially recognized by government as among the poorest in the country, then that student should not have to struggle through additional layers of verification simply to receive support for education.”
For everyone else competing for the remaining slots, he argued the targeting should be updated, local, and anchored on real household data instead of guesswork or outdated lists.
“Second, for the remaining TES slots, the bill introduces a more accurate and updated targeting mechanism by utilizing the Community-Based Monitoring System or CBMS, established under Republic Act No. 11315,” he stated.
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