Scholarships exist for one simple reason: to give financially struggling students a chance to access education. They are meant to level the playing field, to allow those without means to pursue their dreams, break cycles of poverty, and contribute to society. These programs are funded by public money. Every peso comes from taxpayers: jeepney drivers, small vendors, minimum-wage earners, and parents who skip meals just to save money for their children. Scholarships are supposed to empower the students. Yet in the hands of powerful people, they have become instruments of control.
The evidence is everywhere. Scholarship programs are renamed after politicians: "Iskolar ni Congressman X," and "Scholar ng Mayor Y," announced through tarpaulins large enough to double as campaign posters. Distribution ceremonies became political rallies with countless photographers in front while beneficiaries lined up behind. Students are forced to publicly thank politicians, sometimes reading prepared scripts or posting endorsements on social media, turning grantees into living political billboards.
Worse, assemblies meant to guide students academically are hijacked for political surveillance. Instead of discussing grades, requirements, or academic welfare, students are asked questions that have nothing to do with education, “Which party are you loyal to? And where does your family cast their votes?” These gatherings are not orientations; rather, they are interrogations. The intent is not to help students succeed, but to map political loyalties.
Some programs go further. Students are asked outright if they are registered COMELEC voters. The question is not innocent. It identifies who can vote now, who will vote soon, and who can be mobilized when election season arrives. Public funds are thus used not only to sustain education, but to build a voter database — quietly, efficiently, and coercively.
And the threat always lingers, unspoken but understood: support them or you'll lose your scholarship grant. Grantees know that dissent is dangerous. A critical post, a refusal to support the politician's side, visible support for an opponent—any of these can mean being quietly dropped from the list. There is no due process, no written explanation, only sudden "budget cuts" that somehow target the disobedient first.
This is not assistance — this is political conditioning. Assistance helps without demanding obedience. Conditioning trains behavior through reward and punishment. When scholarships are given with expectations of loyalty — and withdrawn at the first sign of dissent — they stop functioning as social support and start operating as a control mechanism. When scholarships are manipulated, they do not help the students, they are training them to comply, to stay quiet, and to remember that they are holding a string.
The reports of the Commission on Audit (CoA) expose how this system is allowed to thrive. Reports show that major social assistance programs were implemented with weak beneficiary safeguards, overlapping budgets, and reliance on politically endorsed lists, leading to millions in duplicated, improperly supported, or election-linked disbursements rather than transparent, needs-based scholarship support.
It also aligns with political science research showing that clientelism and patronage are pervasive in Philippine politics, where public programs become tools for securing support rather than fulfilling public rights (Hicken, Aspinall & Weiss, 2019; Teehankee, 2012). In this system, scholarships are stripped of their constitutional purpose and converted into political commodities, trapping grantees in cycles of silence, fears, gratitude, and dependence.
May this be your eye-opener: politicians do not fund scholarships — the people do. These programs are not gifts, rewards, nor favors. They are obligations of the state. No politician has the right to demand gratitude, loyalty, or political silence in exchange for what already belongs to the public. Because public funds are not personal generosity. So to the politicians who brand scholarships with their names: stop demanding praise and loyalty for doing the bare minimum.
Education should liberate minds, not train them to bow. Scholarships should open doors, not mark students like property. Until these programs are stripped of political names, faces, and strings, they will remain what they are today — not help, but his-kolar exploitation.
Written by John Benedict N. Banday (Veritas), Insight PH
John Benedict N. Banday (Veritas), Insight PH is a dedicated campus journalist and contributor. Their insightful writing sparks meaningful conversations and keeps the community informed.
