Three years after state universities quietly began subsidizing a national promise they could not fully afford, the Philippine government has moved to honor its debt — releasing ₱9.75 billion to 108 public colleges to cover the gap between the 2017 free tuition mandate and the funding that never fully followed. Acting Budget Secretary Kim Robert de Leon announced the settlement on August 16, drawing from the 2026 national budget and the Higher Education Development Fund. The payment is less a triumph than a reckoning: an acknowledgment that institutions were asked to carry a public obligation o