In The News: Six Will Fix! Campaign

Last 2 June 2008, the Youth Against Debt (YAD) together with the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) organized a press conference which formally launched its Six will Fix! Campaign calling on the government to peg education spending six percent (6%) of the Gross National Product (GNP). The said call is based on a widely accepted international standard on education expenditure as recommended by the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-First century of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

In their joint analysis, YAD and FDC revealed that the country’s education spending as proportion of the GNP never reached 4%. The groups also explained that from 1996 to 2007, total interest payments amounted to P 2.2 trillion compared to the total gap or losses our education suffered through the years which totaled to P 1.66 trillion.

The youth group also castigated President Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s moratorium on tuition hikes and demanded instead an immediate moratorium on debt payments pending investigation, renegotiation and condonation.

The said press conference was covered by ABS-CBN, Net 25, Pinas Newspaper, ABC 5, RPN 9, Philippine Inquirer, Peoples Journal, GMANews.TV, Remate, DWIZ, DZAR, Sunshine TV.

YAD and FDC’s statement also landed on gmanews.tv highlighting its call for debt moratorium and for the government to comply with the 6% GNP benchmark on education spending.

In other news, YAD was quoted by a June 3 Business Mirror Newspaper Editorial on Education wherein the youth group lambasted the government’s simplistic solutions to education problems and asserted that the government should focus on strengthening existing state colleges and universities deemed as centers of excellence instead of building more public schools just to satisfy patronage politics.

GMANews.TV
03 June 2008
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/98619/Group-wants-debt-moratorium-6-GNP-education-spending#

Group wants debt moratorium, 6% GNP education spending
Article posted June 02, 2008 – 10:56 AM

MANILA, Philippines – With one week to go before classes start, militant anti-debt youths demanded that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo follow the United Nations’ benchmark to spend six percent of gross national product on education.

The Youth Against Debt (YAD) also reiterated the call for a moratorium on paying “illegitimate” debts, instead of having President Arroyo calling for a freeze in tuition hikes.

“We want Mrs. Arroyo to put money where her mouth is. Her moratorium on tuition hikes is too little and too late. Instead, we demand a moratorium in the payments of all illegitimate debts,” the group said in a statement posted on the website of the Freedom from Debt Coalition.

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