CEBU CITY, PHILIPPINES — The Cebu City Government is pushing to revive plans to establish its own city college following the Asian College of Technology (ACT) scholarship accreditation controversy, with Councilor Pastor M. Alcover Jr. proposing satellite campuses in upland barangays to expand access to higher education.
Alcover has filed a proposal seeking to establish a main campus at the South Road Properties (SRP) and satellite campuses in Barangay Guba and Barangay Babag.
The Guba campus is intended to serve students from northern upland barangays, while the Babag campus will cater to those in the southern district—areas where access to tertiary education has long been limited.
Governance of the proposed college will be vested in a Board of Trustees chaired by the mayor, with members from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the City Council, faculty, students, alumni, and scholarship program officials.
Academic offerings will include business administration, nursing, education majors, computer science, and non-degree technical courses.
Funding will be sourced from the Special Education Fund, supplemented by local revenues, grants, donations, and income-generating projects, all subject to Commission on Audit (COA) rules. Oversight will be provided by a Board of Visitors composed of the mayor, vice mayor, and council members.
The proposal revives a long-standing plan for Cebu City College.
In 2012, Ordinance No. 2320 was enacted to establish the college, but CHED later advised its repeal due to outdated provisions and a moratorium on new city colleges.
In 2019, then mayor Edgardo Labella tasked then councilor Raymond Alvin Garcia to draft a new measure, later dubbed the “Mayor Labella Ordinance,” which was more detailed and compliant with CHED requirements.
The COVID-19 pandemic and Labella’s death stalled its passage. Garcia revived the measure in 2024, but the planned conversion of the Ramos Market site into the Cebu City College has yet to progress.
Alcover’s latest proposal expands the vision by introducing satellite campuses to decentralize access and directly address the needs of mountain barangays.
Mayor Nestor Archival recalled that the establishment of a Cebu City College had already been proposed during his time as councilor.
“Naa na na during the time nga konsehal pa ko… naa nay ordinansa niana…so buhaton nato, ibalik ni nato didto sa discussion didto sa floor,” Archival said earlier.
He, however, acknowledged both the advantages and challenges of pursuing the project.
“Now unsa man gyuy advantage kun magbuhat ta’g atong kaugalingon nga college nga public ug unsa puy disadvantage…Para nako, I would prefer nga naa unta na…because we will have our own school…but then again…do we have the capacity to do that?” he added.
Archival said budget constraints must be carefully considered.
“But kun mangutana ka ganahan ba ko… of course, ganahan ko in a way…but we also have to understand that everything that we do there are advantages and disadvantages and considering sa pagkakaon nga naa tay medyo bitawng kalisud in terms of finding this budget, usa na sa i-consider,” he said.
The renewed push comes in the wake of the ACT accreditation controversy.
On April 14, 2026, the City Council voted 8–7 against accrediting ACT’s Pit-os campus under the city scholarship program, citing compliance gaps, missing documents, and conflict-of-interest concerns linked to its ownership by former congressman Rodrigo Abellanosa—who had also been identified as among those who previously pushed for the establishment of a city college.
The rejection left close to 2,000 upland students without access to scholarships, prompting criticism and calls for national government intervention from Councilor Alvin Arcilla.
By proposing a city-run college system with satellite campuses, Alcover and his colleagues aim to reduce reliance on private institutions and ensure equitable access to higher education.
The measure builds on earlier efforts under mayors Labella, Mike Rama, and Raymond Garcia, while expanding the vision to include decentralized campuses that directly address the gaps exposed by the ACT controversy.
The challenge remains whether the city has the fiscal capacity to sustain the project, but political will to finally realize Cebu City College is expected to be stronger than ever.
| Written by Caecent No-ot Magsumbol/FPL
