Marcos did not author free college tuition law

Convinced by the claim, some Filipinos argue the president deserves credit for free college education and blame PNoy for blocking the bill’s passage

Claim: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was the first to propose the free college tuition law in Congress, which means he should be recognized as the main author and given full credit for the law.

Rating: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: The TikTok video containing the claim has 244,200 views, 19,600 likes, 3,733 shares, and 2,142 comments as of writing.

The text in the video states: “Yung libreng kolehiyo, si PBBM (President Bongbong Marcos) pala ang nakaisip. Libreng kolehiyo ni Senator Marcos Jr. It’s not Bam or Duterte! It’s PBBM.“

(The free college education? It turns out PBBM was the one who thought of it. It’s Senator Marcos Jr.’s free college program. It’s not Bam or Duterte’s [idea] — it’s PBBM’s!)

Some social media users seem to believe the video, with one commenting, “Good thing na naipalabas ‘yan, kasi mga kabataan ngayon akala nila walang nagawa si PBBM para sa libreng tuition for college.” (It’s a good thing that information has been surfaced, because young people today think PBBM didn’t contribute to the free college tuition law).

Another user added, “So BBM ang unang author ng free education, pero hindi pinirmahan noon ni PNoy (President Noynoy Aquino) kasi siya ang presidente noon.” (So BBM was the original author of the free education bill, but it wasn’t signed back then by PNoy because he was the president at the time.)

The facts: Contrary to claims, Marcos was neither the original author nor the main advocate of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (Republic Act 10931), which grants free tuition and exemptions from other fees in state universities and colleges, local universities and colleges, and state-run technical-vocational institutions in the Philippines.

Although Marcos publicly voiced support for free tertiary education as early as 2015 — delivering speeches and calling for feasibility studies — he did not author, co-author, or sponsor any bill related to this initiative during his tenure as either senator or congressman.

The Free Tuition Law traces its origins to several key legislators in the 16th Congress. Former representative Terry Ridon filed the first related proposal, House Resolution 2135, on May 27, 2015. This was followed by House Bill 5905 — the Free College Bill — authored by then-Valenzuela representative Sherwin Gatchalian on July 28, 2015. Quezon representative Alfred Vargas filed a similar measure, House Bill 6379, in January 2016.

In the Senate, then-senator Ralph Recto filed Senate Bill 2986 on October 6, 2015 — the first free college bill filed in the upper chamber. Recto continued his advocacy into the 17th Congress and, along with then-senator Joel Villanueva, filed similar bills on June 30, 2016. Their early authorship established them as the principal authors of the measure.

Parallel to these efforts, then-Kabataan representative Sarah Elago filed House Bill 4800 or the Comprehensive Free Public Higher Education Act on January 23, 2017, which sought free tuition in all public colleges, special grants for indigent and disabled students, and curriculum reforms that are “nationalistic, scientific and mass-oriented.”

Then-senator Bam Aquino, as chair of the Senate committee on education, culture and arts, became the principal sponsor of the consolidated version of the free tuition measures — Senate Bill 1304, also known as the Affordable Higher Education for All Act. The bill was a product of Senate Committee Report No. 28, which Aquino filed on January 23, 2017. His leadership during plenary sponsorship, debates, and committee hearings earned him credit as the law’s main Senate advocate.

RA 10931 was signed into law by then-president Rodrigo Duterte on August 3, 2017. While Duterte enacted the measure, the bulk of the legislative work — from authorship to consolidation and sponsorship — was driven by lawmakers in both chambers, none of whom included Marcos. – Marjuice Destinado/Rappler.com

Marjuice Destinado is a junior political science student at Cebu Normal University (CNU). An Aries Rufo Journalism Fellow of Rappler for 2025, she serves as the feature editor of Ang Suga, CNU’s official student publication.

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