A DAY before the regular en banc session of the Supreme Court, youth groups led by Kabataan Partylist called on the high court to immediately issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the implementation of tuition and other fee increases in 354 private colleges and universities nationwide.
“The issue at hand is imbued with great importance, such that a delay in the issuance of a TRO will cause grave and irreparable injury not just to the petitioners but to thousands of tertiary-level students affected by the illegal tuition hikes,” said complainant-lawyer Terry Ridon, Kabataan Partylist president and counsel for the petitioners.
“Apart from having sufficient legal grounds for the issuance of a TRO, the controversy at hand is also sufficiently ripe for the high court to tackle,” Ridon said. “In this light, we ask the SC to expedite the release of a TRO.”
Last May 29, youth groups led by Kabataan Partylist along with students from various colleges and universities filed a petition in the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the newly-approved hikes in 354 tertiary schools nationwide.
The petition comes right after the CHED en banc approved 354 out of 451 tuition hike applications last May 27.
In the petition for certiorari, mandamus and prohibition filed by youth groups last week, youth and student leaders asked the high court to declare the newly-approved increases in tuition and other fees invalid for failure to being subjected to “reasonable regulation and supervision,” as stipulated in Article XIV Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution.
Specifically, the petition questions the constitutionality of Sec. 42 of Batas Pambansa No. 232 or the Education Act of 1982 and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Memorandum Order No. 3 series of 2012 – the two of which are the basis for approval of new and higher fees in tertiary schools – as “both law and regulation does not constitute reasonable regulation and supervision of all educational institutions as required by the 1987 Constitution.”
The petition also calls on the Supreme Court to declare invalid all increases in tuition and other school fees that were based on the BP 232 and CMO 3 even in the past years.
Respondents for the case include CHED, and several schools that increased tuition for the incoming academic year, notably the University of Santo Tomas, University of the East Caloocan and Adamson University.
Pending the resolution of the petition, petitioners asked the SC to “immediately issue” a TRO and/or a writ of preliminary prohibitory injunction, which will prohibit respondents from implementing “all approved and previously implemented increases in tuition and other school fees.”
“There is no reason for the SC to delay hearing this petition, as for years, unsound tuition policies have transmogrified higher education into its current deregulated nature, and it will only continue if we don’t strike down the laws and regulations that allow such,” Ridon said.