Nograles admits mistake on allegation against CHED chair's travels, but...

PBA party-list Representative Jericho Nograles on Sunday admitted he committed a mistake when he claimed Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chair Patricia Licuanan's trips abroad were not authorized by the Office of the President.

Nograles, however, insisted that despite the official clearance for Licuanan's travels abroad, hundreds of thousands in government funds were spent.

"I'm glad that Chair Licuanan clarified this and confirmed that the CHED Chair went on a travel binge for the entire year in 2017. For her travels, she was absent for 41 days, used P893,102 in government funds, and booked business class international tickets," Nograles said.

"I was wrong in claiming that she did not secure her travel authority from the OP but I was correct in my position that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' money were spent for Chair Licuanan's travels while thousands of CHED scholars are grumbling because their stipend and tuition fee are yet to be paid. That should say something on how the Chairperson is setting her priorities," he added.

Licuanan had said that her trips abroad were approved by the Office of the President.

“I get a travel authority from the Office of the President for all my travel including personal trips. This is well documented. I issue travel authorities for all CHED officials but not for myself,” she said in a statement on Saturday.

She was reacting to Nograles's earlier accusation that she approved her own travel authorities.

Meanwhile, Nograles said he is concerned that Licuanan cannot properly implement the law providing free tuition for tertiary students.

The congressman had questioned Licuanan's failure to address the non-release of allowance and subsidies for CHED scholars while criticizing her foreign travels.

Nograles lamented how Licuanan could be travelling abroad using taxpayers' money while CHED could not release the scholarship allowances and support for the tuition of its scholars.

"How lucky can she get? She even got paid for spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' money to travel the globe!" Nograles said.

In a statement signed by Licuanan in December, CHED said it “acknowledges that the delays have caused pain to our scholars, many of whom rely on the living allowances for the daily subsistence of their families.”

The CHED said that the release of the funds had been slowed down by the volume of documents, its internal system not being designed to take in a large quantity of scholarship administration, among others.

Nograles said that Licuanan should have spent more time fixing the system.

“I cannot count the number of letters and appeals I received from teachers and scholars nationwide begging for a solution. The so-called documentary requirements were not made known to the scholars within a reasonable time. Therefore, the non-payment is clearly a management issue,” Nograles said.

"There are unpaid tuition and living allowances that are as far back as 2016. What will our scholars tell their landlords whey they being asked to pay for their room or dorm? They should wait because the CHED Chair is busy travelling the world?" he added.

With this, Nograles cast doubt as to how the CHED under Licuanan's leadership will implement RA 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

“If you can’t handle thousands of scholars, how do you expect to convince Congress and the taxpaying public that you can handle millions of College scholars? Madame Chair, please be realistic. If you can’t do the job, then we must find someone who can do it,” Nograles said.

"The implementation of this free college education law requires a full-time CHED chair and not one who would be travelling far away from present problems affecting our educators and students," he added. —ALG, GMA News