Aquino’s Final SONA | Education, employment turn worse – youth groups “The onslaught of commercialization and education deregulation under the Aquino administration has driven not one, but many students to desperation and even death. This is Aquino’s real legacy to the Filipino youth.”
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL

MANILA – Expensive cost of education, unemployment and more out of school youth. This is what the youth has endured under President Benigno S. Aquino III, said progressive youth groups.

“Education, employment, standard of living – all of these aspects took a turn for the worse under Aquino’s five-year rule,” said Kabataan Partylist Rep. Terry Ridon.

He said tuition rates and youth unemployment are at their highest, the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, while wages remain stagnant if not decreasing. “These are the facts that Aquino will undoubtedly omit in his last State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday.”
Commercialization of education
“Education is a public good, but ironically under this regime, it has become a private good because of the commercialization schemes and policies of Aquino, such as tuition and school fees deregulation, and the Roadmap to Public Higher Education Reforms (RPHER)”said Sarah Elago, National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP) president.
Data from the Kabataan Partylist showed that in Aquino’s five years in office, tuition increased by an average of 108 percent at the national level, from P257 ($5.67) per unit to P574 ($12.66). The rate of increase is even higher in the National Capital Region, at 143 percent, the group said.
Elago said that Aquino did not act to stop the perennial tuition deregulation in the country. She said Aquino has not only tolerated private school owners and state universities and colleges (SUC) to accumulate more profits through “exorbitant, redundant and