Gordon urges public to support 'Text-for-Education' bill

Senator Richard J. Gordon (Ind.) called on the public to support his "Text-for-Education" bill to improve the country's education and health care systems, stressing that the telecommunications industry has progressed rapidly through the years.

The senator's proposal, logged as Senate Bill 2402, an Act creating the Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP) Corporation, seeks to improve the country's health care and education systems.

The fund for the program will come from telecommunications companies, which would remit a portion of their total revenues arising from local text messaging to the HEAP Corporation.

"The number of mobile phone subscribers has drastically increased from at least 34,000 in 1994 to more than 60 million in 2008. With the success that the telcos in the country have achieved,I see no reason why they cannot contribute to the overall improvement of the country's education and health care systems," he said.

During the privilege speech of Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile on the issue of the "disappearing load", Gordon brought up the Text-for-Education bill and pointed out that the measure would not be a burden to the consumers.

"The idea here is that, telcos would allocate a part of their earnings to the HEAP Corporation. They cannot pass the brunt to the consumers because there will be a no-pass on provision," Gordon, chairman of the Senate committee on government corporations and public enterprises, said.

"There are approximately two billion text messages sent a day. If we get 10 percent, that would be P200 million a day and P73 billion a year. That is more than enough to fill up all the gaps in health and education infrastructures in a year's time," he added.

The senator noted that the country's public school system lacks at least 9,000 classrooms, four million seats, 63 million textbooks, 39,000 teachers and 8,000 principals. To fill these gaps alone, the government would need at least P23 billion.

He explained that the HEAP bill envisions the creation of a fund to rapidly wipe out backlogs in school infrastructures, enhance the country's public education system, improve the health and welfare of students, and increase remuneration of public school teachers.

"In a year's time, we can eliminate shortages in education and health infrastructures. We can sufficiently provide computer units for all public school pupils. They will also be better fed, given vaccinations against diseases, and provided access to regular, free dental services; even the remuneration of our teachers would increase," Gordon said.

"It is important that we realize that, at some point in time, we should have the determination to find out how we can help the country. Our support to this measure is our investment for the future of our youth," he added.