Bangon Pilipinas standard bearer Bro. Eddie Villanueva Tuesday said a tuition fee increase during bad economic times is a death sentence for education of poor but deserving students.

Villanueva issued the statement in the wake of reports that the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), a state school, is set to implement a 2,000 percent increase in tuition fee.

PUP president Dr. Dante Guevarra confirmed last week that an increase from P12 to P200 per unit will take effect next semester on incoming freshmen.

“With due respect to the concerned university officials, the issue on hand truly requires a serious second look. Because it is the responsibility of the State to educate its people, any anti-student tuition hike amid worsening poverty diametrically opposes the very purpose of state universities,” said the Bangon Pilipinas Party presidential bet.

A former PUP professor, regent, and scholarship donor, Villanueva said that most PUP students come from poor families.

“But these are the students who truly know the value of hard-earned education. They are purposeful, intelligent, and promising,” he said.

Deny these students access to affordable yet high quality education would mean losing by default to the present economic encumbrances the fight for a new generation of principled and learned leaders, he said.

“I don’t think that making them pay for education more than they can barely afford now is the right way you treat the nation’s future presidents, senators, businessmen, artists, computer experts, engineers, entrepreneurs, accountants, media men, scientists, and accountants. They certainly deserve better,” Villanueva said.

Villanueva was one of those who led a 1970s movement that pushed PUP’s ownership of the 20-hectare land where the university stands in Sta. Mesa, Manila Wednesday.

“I never thought that I’d still see today the struggles for equal access to good education that I saw in my own time as a young student activist. And as I have fought steadfastly in the past, I again stand alongside the thousands of PUPians and rally behind their parents in a common struggle to call on the government to bear the burden of providing quality education to our children which is its Constitutional duty and mandate. And at the very least, a dialogue among all the stakeholders is necessary before any implementation of the planned hike is adopted,” he said.

Earlier, Guevarra justified the increase as necessary for the improvement of school facilities and services. He reasoned that for the past 30 years,tuition at PUP has remained one of the lowest among the country’s 111 state universities.

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has expressed doubt over the necessity and legality of the hike’s implementation.