The San Fernando City government is open to proposals to convert its City College of San Fernando into a state college.
But stakeholders objected to the prospect of the school’s integration with the Don Honorio Ventura State University during a consultative meeting among stakeholders called by Pampanga Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales, Jr. at the DHVSU gymnasium in Bacolor town.
“The proposal to integrate CCSFP to DHVSU is a no-no for us. But, the conversion of the college into a state college or state university, eventually, is another thing,” said San Fernando City Mayor Vilma Caluag.
“It is something that we can agree upon. Besides, that was, to me, our ultimate dream, to have a state college for Fernandinos,” she added.
Stakeholders comprising the board of trustees, supreme student council, the faculty and employees’ association, and the alumni association of the CCSFP earlier came out with position papers expressing their opposition to House Bill 4079 that seeks the conversion of the CCSFP into a state college and its integration as a campus of DHVSU.
The position papers were transmitted to Baguio Rep. Mark Go, chair of the House committee on higher and technical education on Sept. 27.
The stakeholders lamented that “no public consultations, or at the very least, consultations with the stakeholders (i.e. students, faculty, alumni, etc.) were held.”
On November 11, Gonzales invited city officials led by Caluag and CCSFP president Gloria Bañas to a meeting to discuss both bills in the wake of their opposition to the bill.
“At the end of the day, this [bill] will not be about me or the mayor but the Fernandinos who will benefit from the funding and other national government assistance,” Gonzales said in a Punto Central Luzon report.
