By Dang Samson Garcia
COMMISSION on Higher Education Chairman Prospero de Vera III confirmed that there is no appropriations for new beneficiaries of the Tulong Dunong Program under the 2024 national budget.
During the hearing of the Senate Finance Subcommittee, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva asked CHED about updates on its Tulong Dunong Scholarship Program, noting that the agency did not request for a budget for the implementation of the program next year.
Villanueva said he received complaints from the beneficiaries/grantees of the program that they were asked to submit documents or open bank accounts with the Development Bank of the Philippines but they did not receive even a single centavo.
“Once a student is accepted to the Tulong Dunong program, will they continue to receive assistance until he graduates? Because right now there will be no funding for 2024,” the majority leader asked.
De Vera informed Villanueva that once a student is a beneficiary of the program, he/she automatically gets Tulong Dunong fund until he/she graduates. This is by virtue of a special provision in the General Appropriations Act, he added.
De Vera also said the program has no budget in the 2024 proposal of the agency because, as per policy of the Department of Budget and Management, if its funding was a realignment of Congress, it is automatically not included in the National Expenditure Program.
