STILL PERSONA NON GRATA

LINGAYEN—The provincial board thumbed down the request of the president of Pangasinan State University (PSU) here to speak during their session to discuss the implementing guidelines of the free college tuition law in the country.

“We cannot address the letter, first we have declared, and this body has approved, the president of the Pangasinan State University Dr. (Dexter) Buted as in Pangasinan,” Fourth District Board Member Jeremy Agerico Rosario pointed out last Monday’s session.

Sixth District Board Member Noel Bince echoed Rosario’s sentiment, “I believe that he does not have any personality in the province much more in the provincial board of Pangasinan.” He sconded.

In his letter dated July 17, 2017 addressed to Gov. Amado Espino III through the provincial board of Pangasinan, Buted informed the provincial government that Pangasinan State University is one of the SUCs in the Region that will “render Free Tuition, aside from being commissioned by the Department of Budget and Management and Commission on Higher Education to facilitate the SUC-Tulong Dunong Program”

Buted requested for time to discuss the implementing guidelines of Republic Act 10931 or Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.

Rosario said scholarship program of the provincial government to state colleges “is not actually a scholarship program as it is in a form of a financial grant to deserving financially-challenged families of students in Pangasinan”.

Rosario said Buted’s letter “does not concern us as it zeroes in on the municipality of Lingayen alone, not for the whole province” and added that the 2,000 recipients of the provincial government’s financial aid to deserving students is P5,000 per semester will not be affected.

Vice Gov. Calimlim said, “Over and above, whatever circumstances, it was a letter to the municipality of Lingayen, and not to the province of Pangasinan”.

Buted wrote in his letter that “this will uplift the life of the people of Lingayen”.

Bince, on his part, recalled the times Buted ignored the series of invitations to Buted during their ad hoc committee investigation on the affairs of PSU “ making us useless as a body and a representative of the provincial board of Pangasinan”.

Bince said Buted’s letter “is probably a last ditch effort on his part to placate the emotions, the wounded feelings and the pain that we have suffered during those times that we have invited him but to naught”.

When sought for his reaction, Buted told The PUNCH, that he appeared in the hearing presided by SP’s ad hoc committee but when he sensed that the proceedings were following a political agenda against him, specifically for accepting Mark Cojuangco as guest in PSU, the political rival of then Governor Amado Espino Jr., he decided not to appear in the succeeding hearings.

Buted said he has no political motive in his intention to appear in the board but only to inform the board members of the different free tuition fee programs of the government and PSU for the students in Pangasinan.

He said letters were sent to all local governments, particularly to the towns where the nine campuses of PSU (Lingayen, Binmaley, Infanta, San Carlos City, Bayambang, Urdaneta City, Sta Maria, Asingan and Alaminos City) to help disseminate the information about the scholarship programs for SUC’s.

He stressed that the free tuition fee program for SUC’s this 2017 is different from the program recently signed by President Rodrigo Duterte which mandates a free tuition fee program for 2018. (Tita Roces/Nora Dominguez)

 

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