Students rally in front of the Commission on Higher Education office. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
AS penalties for their expired visas mount, international students of Southwestern University’s medical college joined a protest rally at the gates of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) regional office yesterday.
Around 300 students complained about the non-issuance of special orders (SO) for graduation; certificates of eligibility to foreign students who need to renew their visas or apply for student visas; and formal communication with the US Board of Medicine to allow students to take their board exams.
An Iranian student said several have already paid fines amounting to over P70,000. The amount will continue to rise as long as they cannot have their visas renewed, he said.
“(The) Bureau of Immigration has no problem with us. The only problem is office of CHED not giving the letter of endorsement,” he added.
A student from Nigeria said it’s not their fault.
“We are not law breakers. We are law-abiding students. We´ve been following up with (the Bureau of) Immigration. We go to Immigration all the time. All they tell us is go back to CHED,” he said.
The commission has refused to issue SOs and certificates of eligibility to graduates and students of SWU College of Medicine in Urgello. A cease-and-desist order against the college was issued last June, but Malacañang suspended this in September.
CHED recognized only the SWU-Matias H. Aznar Memorial College of Medicine, Inc. (MHAM), which had managed the college until an internal dispute forced it out of the Urgello campus.
The medical college in Urgello is now run by SWU, which is being controlled by Phinma Education Holdings, Inc., while MHAM is run by some Aznar family members.
Dr. Freddie Bernal, CHED 7 regional director, said the protesting students were “barking up the wrong tree” since their concerns have been elevated to the central office.
He said the non-issuance of the documents was caused by “irregularities” in the documents submitted by SWU, not by the cease-and-desist order.
Bernal was in another conference, but drove back to the CHED office to talk to the students.
Krenz Yaba, SWU College of Medicine´s governor, and Donny Torralba, student body vice president, were allowed inside the CHED office to submit a letter of complaint.
Yaba said the university registrar submitted the applications for SO for 23 graduates in the first week of October yet.
Among the alleged irregularities in the documents that SWU submitted were claims of hospital rotations in the Celestino Gallares Memorial Hospital in Bohol, which turned out to be negative, Bernal said.
He also said rotations are required to be made in level 2 hospitals, not level 1 hospitals like the Cebu City Medical Center.
“We are contemplating to file criminal and some administrative charges against the SWU registrar and dean for falsification of records. It will be done at the CHED central office, and we will be providing data and records,” Bernal said.
He promised to follow up on all the students’ concerns. He said the regional office merely implements directives from the commission en banc.
“I am not siding with anybody. We are basing our decisions on our records – whether it is MHAM or SWU or any other school. What is in our policy standards and guidelines should be implemented,” he said.
Related stories :SWU BUCKS FREEZE ORDER