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BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
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Tuesday, April 18, 2017
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ILOILO City – Grantees of the Iskolar sang Quinto (ISQ) scholarship program filed a class suit against the officials of Northern Iloilo Polytechnic State College (NIPSC).
In filing the suit yesterday afternoon, the ISQ grantees claimed NIPSC president Ma. Theresa Palmares and vice president for administration and finance Hilda Magtiza were selective in heeding the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 66’s April 8 temporary restraining order (TRO).
The TRO stopped the school from enforcing the policy of not releasing transcript of records and other school credentials for alleged non-payment of tuition fees.
The class suit was filed in the same court based in Barotac Viejo, Iloilo.
“Ang decision kuno sang NIPSC president, ang nag-file lang kuno for TRO ang gin-release-san sang transcripts and clearances, meaning ang gin obra ‘ya same course of action. Indi ‘ya pag-release-san so nag-file class suit kontra sa iya ang tanan nga ISQ scholars,” said former Iloilo 5th District congressman Niel Tupas Jr.
Neither Palmares nor Magtiza could be reached for comment as of this writing.
The ISQ was a scholarship program of Tupas. It started in 2007 and funded by his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). In 2013, however, the Supreme Court declared the PDAF unconstitutional.
Several ISQ graduates sought the TRO. Presiding Judge Rogelio Amador of RTC, Branch 66 found merit in their petition.
A total of 27,892 students were grantees of the ISQ program in NIPSC’s various campuses and nearly 1,000 of them already graduated. But the graduates could not get their transcript of records due to what NIPSC claimed were unpaid tuition fees reaching P74.7 million.
RTC Branch 66 ordered the state college to stop its policy requiring ISQ grantees to pay for alleged unpaid tuition fees as prerequisite for the release of their school credentials.
ISQ graduates decided to file a class suit after Palmares still did not release their transcript of records.
In issuing the 20-day TRO, RTC Branch 66 stressed NIPSC’s ISQ graduates should not be made to suffer for shortcomings not of their own making.
According to the court, the ISQ program in NIPSC involved “government-to-government payments” thus “it is most logical to assume (and) safe to conclude that funds intended for the scholarship of students were received and in the hands of NIPSC.”
Tupas maintained that the ISQ fund was corrupted. He said charges would be filed against NIPSC and he specifically called for the resignation of the school’s president.
“If there was mishandling, misuses or misapplication of the same resulting to the non-allocation of the corresponding amounts for the tuition fees of each student, it is but fair that these students should not be made to suffer out of a shortcoming not of their own making, unless enough basis is shown to also hold them answerable,” read part of the court order.
It also stressed that “the degree of accountability out of the perceived mess (in the ISQ program), if there is, can be determined only in a proper trial on the merits or in another fora.”/PN
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