Thank you, Mr. President. I’d like to thank the gentleman from Bulacan, as well, our distinguished Majority Floor Leader.
Mr. President, honorable colleagues of this august chamber, as chairperson of the Committee on Higher, Technical, and Vocational Education, I rise to sponsor Committee Report No. 108 which recommends the approval with amendments of House Bill No. 7961 entitled an “Act Strengthening the Bulacan State University Expanding Its Curricular Offerings and Composition of the Governing Board and Appropriating Funds, Therefore.” It consolidates three bills, Mr. President. One that was passed by the House and two filed separately by members of the Bulacan detachment in the Senate, led by our Senate Majority Floor Leader Joel Villanueva and Senator Sherwin Gatchalian.
If the Majority Leader is the expert in technical and vocational education; and the gentleman from Valenzuela, which used to be part of Bulacan, leads the joint congressional commission that is probing the ills of our educational system and thereafter prescribes the cures, then we can confidently assume that this bill has been enriched by their expert inputs.
The current charter of what is called BULSU, not BSU, to distinguish it from the state university of the same acronym, which is known as the Senate President’s hacienda, otherwise known as the Bukidnon State University.
Thirty years gone by provide a wealth of experiences and changes that should be incorporated into a university’s operating system to keep it abreast with the times. Like technology, legal foundations are not exempt from obsolescence, and like apps it must be updated too. Some of the updates, so to speak, in this 2.0 version of the BULSU Charter are organizational in nature, others are financial, in order to make its revenue footing more robust.
But the core improvement, I believe, deals with the heart of an academic institution, on which its curricular offerings would be. Hence, this section in this bill states that “the Bulacan State University and its constituent units shall be strengthened as a state university to enhance its capability to provide accessible quality education by developing the competencies and encouraging specialization of its constituent units, engaging in conventional or alternative instructional techniques, methodologies and strategies, and fostering a unique and distinctive academic leadership toward its improvement as an academic institution and the delivery of higher education services in the Province of Bulacan and Central Luzon region.”
In short, to expand both its curricular offerings and its sphere of academic leadership to the entire Central Luzon region.
This provision, preambular as it may sound, is the purpose that should drive the university as it navigates through a world constantly redefined by breathtaking changes in all fields, especially technology with the disruptive A.I. phenomenon. to cite just one.
To its credit, BULSU has innovation genes embedded in itself. From an American-founded trade school in the town where the Malolos Republic was born, it seamlessly transitioned through various stages in our history. Post-War, it became national trade school, and in 1965 it became a college through an act of Congress.
The next great leap forward for a school which has supplied the human capital to the march to economic progress of one of the country’s progressive provinces came in 1993. This was when, on Rizal Day, December 30, 1993, President Fidel V. Ramos signed Republic Act No. 7665, which converted the Bulacan College of Arts and Trades into the Bulacan State University. What followed was a breakneck expansion of this storied school on all fronts, from course offerings to campuses to student enrolment. It also reaped reputational gains when its alumni landed in the top ten, as they continue to, of board examinations, with one graduating among the top-notchers in the bar examinations.
At present, BULSU offers 50 academic programs, taught by a 1,138-strong faculty to almost 36,000 students in 8 campuses.
With the promise this institution holds, as proven by its past performances, I urge that we approve this bill, so that this great university will be able to realize its mandate.
I submit, Mr. President.