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The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has provided the list of Listahanan identified poor to the Unified Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Act or UniFAST which could be used as reference for the implementation of the Tertiary Education Subsidy or TES.

Hillton John V. Edrial, head of DSWD 7 NHTS discusses the role of DSWD in the implementation of UniFAST TES to the representatives of SUC/LUCs with the Regional UniFast Coordinator for Region 7, Mr. Humabon Marollano (in blue shirt).

This, after DSWD and UniFAST have signed a memorandum of agreement on the use of the data from the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) or Listahanan of the DSWD.

The Listahanan database has also been used by various partner – stakeholders such as government agencies, non-government offices, academe and other interest groups as basis for their potential beneficiaries in their social protection programs.

Republic Act No. 10687 or UniFAST is a government agency mandated for the distribution of the government funds intended for the students and to implement the RA 10931 or “Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (UAQTEA), a law that helps poor students continue their college studies without paying for tuition and other school fees.

One of the programs under RA 10931 is the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) program or a grant-in-aid given to poor but deserving students enrolled in State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) – recognized Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs).

Each student beneficiary of TES receives Php 20,000.00 per semester or Php 40,000/year intended to support the cost of tertiary education such as books, transportation, room and board fees and other school expenses.

Those listed under the Listahanan’s identified-poor and Pantawid beneficiaries do not immediately qualify for the scholarship as TES has its own set of criteria.

Further, a Listahanan and Pantawid membership certification is not a requirement for TES application.

Application for TES is administered by the school only if the students are officially enrolled.

The SUCs/LUCs will be the one to submit the list of applicants to CHED/UniFAST for name matching, verification and approval. ###

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