DAVAO CITY, Philippines (UCAN) -- Dave Cajes is one of thousands of Philippine students who have shifted in recent years from Catholic to public schools because his family could not manage the cost.

After studying from pre-school through second-year high school at Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao University, Dave enrolled this past June at Santa Ana National High School. Both schools are in Davao, 965 kilometers southeast of Manila. Dave's father, Migdonio Cajes, told UCA News a "sharp decline" in family income compelled him and his wife to transfer their son to Santa Ana.

He estimated paying 58,000 pesos (about US$1,250) for Dave's annual tuition at the Ateneo, plus around 14,500 more for books, but he paid just 1,550 pesos for the whole school year at the public school.

When the school announced it would increase the tuition fee by eight percent, Cajes said he and his wife knew "we could not afford it."

By June 2006, an "economic slump" had cut his monthly income as a medical representative at a major pharmaceutical company from 36,000 to 8,000 pesos. The family bakery that his wife runs helped until it faced higher flour costs.

The Ateneo told parents it raised tuition mainly to upgrade the salaries of teachers and staff, and for school maintenance. The Philippines Central Bank says the national average inflation rate for the first half of 2008 reached 7.6 percent by the time schools opened in June for the new academic year.

The "situation of poverty faced by many Filipinos today" was a major concern of Catholic school officials attending the national convention of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), Divine Word Father Roderick Salazar, CEAP's president, told UCA News.

Under the theme "Growing into Soul: Inner Space, Sacred Place in Catholic Education," the convention took place Sept. 11-13 at the Ateneo.

Father Salazar admitted to convention participants, "We are deeply concerned about the continuing decline of students enrolled in Catholic schools." Besides praying for "the guidance of the Spirit of God," he said workshops discussed government grants and loans that students could use as scholarships.

In a presentation on "Catholic Education in the Philippines: Reality and Context," St. Paul of Chartres Sister Teresita Bayona, CEAP's director-at-large, noted the role of Catholic schools in the Philippine Church's pastoral thrust toward "integral faith formation."

If the shift from Catholic schools continues, the Church will have to find ways to reach students who no longer attend religion classes, she asserted.

During the 2003-2004 school year, she reported, 2.95 percent of more than 20 million students in public and private schools around the nation were enrolled in Catholic schools, compared to 3.32 percent the previous year.

"This indicates a consistent trend of migration from Catholic schools to either non-sectarian private or public schools," Sister Bayona concluded.

Teachers at the convention said students cited their schools' unaffordable costs to explain why they shifted. Reg Maluadus, a religious studies teacher at St. Mary's College in Quezon City, northeast of Manila, told UCA News, "Many transferred to public schools because of the low fees and free tuition."

The government is mandated to provide elementary and secondary schooling without charging tuition. This arrangement covers direct costs of instruction, such as teacher salaries and the use of educational facilities.

However, the free education act states that schools may charge students for library, laboratory, athletic and other "supportive" services.

Ofelia Migaue, another convention participant, told UCA News most parents of her school's 385 students are sugarcane plantation farmers. She teaches at San Jose High School, Valencia town, Bukidnon province, 835 kilometers southeast of Manila. With daily wages of about 100 pesos, they have barely enough for food and other basic needs, the 46 year-old biology teacher said.

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