Meet the Student Recipients of UPIEAA’s Financial Assistance for SY17-18

In between the October and November meetings of the UPIEAA board, the Financial Awards Committee of UPIEAA, consisting of committee chair Jop Yap, and members Edwin Reyes, Maan del Rosario and Nicky Villasenor, reviewed the Final 15 applications for the UPIEAA Financial assistance grants and recommended six awardees for the school year 2017-2018.

The awardees will be retroactively awarded their grants beginning the month of August, the start of the UP school year and will continue to be paid till May 2018, or a total of 10 months. The awardees will initially be paid by check or cash but once they’ve fulfilled the BDO documentation requirements, they will all be given cash cards and they can withdraw their stipends from any BDO ATM.

The committee recommended, and the UPIEAA board en banc accepted, the following six applicants, in alphabetical order:

1. Barcelona, Patricia Mae
2. Conol, Julius
3. Glova, Ichiro Kelvi
4. Perez, Gene Carlos
5. Redillas, Paul
6. Victor, Kristin Mae

Julius Conol is one of three recipients of the UPIEAA Financial assistance for SY2016-2017. The committee decided to drop the two other recipients from the 2017-2018 list, namely Carmela Acosta and Alicia Chan, since their status were deemed less meritorious than the Five other new candidates. However, Chan and Acosta will still be eligible to apply for SY 2018-2019.

Patricia Mae Barcelona’s application was approved because her father’s (a government veterinary inspector) net income of P5,600 monthly can hardly support the family’s everyday needs let alone pick up Patricia’s dorm fees of P2,500 monthly and transportation expenses of P2,000 per month. The family rents the house they’re living in, at a cost of P5,000 monthly, forcing her parents to regularly borrow from the government and their relatives. Getting the grant can cover all of Patricia’s education expenses and spare her parents from further Financial stress.

Julius Conol had struggled with day to day education-related expenses until he was awarded one of the student Financial grants by UPIEAA for SY 2016-2017. He regularly borrowed from his friends, he skipped a lot of meals, and struggled with buying basic necessities required by the different subjects. Julius’ parents are separated and the father has a new family and now provides only P3,500 monthly support to his old family. The mom is a barangay heath worker who only earns P1,200 a month. Julius’ grades had improved remarkably after he started receiving the grant and was able to focus more on his studies and less on expenses. For his last semester, he had a 1.62 GPA.

Ichiro Glova is from Locos Norte and was orphaned when his parents died. He used to rely on his siblings for Financial support but they’ve neglected him starting last year and he’s been struggling Financially, emotionally, and academically. Nevertheless, Ichiro is proud that he’s made it to his Fifth year without quitting. He hopes to Finish his IE degree, with the assistance of UPIEAA’s student grant.

Gene Perez had been able to get by with his DOST RA 7687 scholarship. However, his father, an employee of Top Notch Bingo at SM Lipa City, recently had to undergo open-heart surgery and had been unable to work for the past few months, thereby not getting any salary. The mom is a housewife and has been taking care of his father full-time. Gene has had very good grades – 1.66 and 1.29 GPA for the two semesters of SY2016-2017 – but this could suffer given the Financial difFiculties now confronting the Perez family.

Paul Redillas is from Albay and had been relying on his grandfather, a farmer, for financial support despite being a DOST scholar. However, Financial assistance has not been consistent since farm yields is extremely variable, depending on droughts, typhoons, and pestilence. And Lately, his grandfather has been getting sickly, resulting in foregone revenues and savings being diverted for hospital bills and costly maintenance medicines.

Kristin Victor’s mother had surgery in 2014 to remove a stage 4 breast cancer lump after which she’s been undergoing expensive medicinal breast cancer therapy. Then in 2015, her father underwent angioplasty after rushing him to the hospital when he suffered a heart attack. Both parents are now unemployed and since two years ago, Kristin’s elder brother had born the weight of the family’s financial needs. Medical expenses have piled up and the family has resorted to borrowing from relatives to pay off hospital bills. With this Financial assistance, Kristin plans to pick up her dormitory fees and possibly even contribute just a little to help with her parents’ medicine purchases. Kristin had a 1.76 GPA for the last semester.