Zubiri: Sponsorship of the Bicameral Conference Committee Report on the Expanded PSHS Act
June 10, 2025

Mr. President, it is my honor to submit for ratification to the body the Bicameral Conference Committee Report on the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill No. 2974 and House Bill No. 9726, otherwise known as the Expanded Philippine Science High School Systems Act.

This is our measure strengthening the Philippine Science High School System, to enable it to serve more deserving students across the country.

Would you believe, Mr. President, that for many years, during the establishment of the Philippine Science High School, we only had one science high school per region. Sa laki po ng populasyon natin, umabot na po tayo sa higit 110 million Filipinos, we definitely need to expand the Philippine Science High School System across the country.

So, in line with this, we had very productive pre-bicam and bicam meetings where we were able to reconcile the Senate and House versions of the bill. The bicam panel adopted the Senate version as the working draft, and the most significant matter that we resolved was the number of campuses. As of now, under this bill which will hopefully be signed by the President, we will be creating at least two Philippine Science High School campuses per region.

For example, sa amin po sa Northern Mindanao, yung campus ng Philippine Science High School ay nasa Balo-i, Lanao del Norte--napakalayo sa Cagayan de Oro, Misamis Oriental, Camiguin, and Bukidnon. So now we would be able to put another one closer to these areas that I mentioned, Mr. President.

Same will go for many other regions, for example in Region VII, it is in Cebu, and the people of Bohol are also clamoring for one more science high school in the province of Bohol, being that it is the second largest population in Region VII.

These additional campuses, to assure the body, would still need to meet the Philippine Science High School Board's criteria.

Furthermore, under the reconciled bill, the PSHS will be able to receive support from the Adopt-a-School program for the improvement of its learning facilities and research-related activities.

The PSHS campuses will also facilitate partnerships with the Department of Education's Science High Schools and Special Science Elementary and High School Programs.

I would like to thank the members of the subcommittee that helped me in the passage of this measure. This is one step towards our mission to bring high quality education to every Filipino across the country.

I hope that we can all get behind this measure to make our STEM education more accessible to more deserving young students.

But I would like to give special thanks to Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, the Chairperson of the Committee on Science and Technology, for granting our request to create this subcommittee and designating us as its chair. He went to me earlier, and asked that he be made co-sponsor and co-author of the measure.

I would like to also thank our bicam panel headed by my co-chair Congressman Carlito Marquez, together with Minority Leader Koko Pimentel, Sen. Nancy Binay, Sen. JV Ejercito, Sen. Win Gatchalian, Congw. Maria Vanessa Aumentado, Congw. Divina Grace Yu, Cong. Gabriel Bordado, Cong. Inno Dy, Congw. Jeyzel Yu, and Cong. Joey Salceda.

With that, I would like to move for the Joint Explanatory Note on the Disagreeing Provisions of Senate Bill No. 2974 and House Bill No. 9726 be read in toto into the Records and that the Conference Committee Report be ratified by the body.

Maraming salamat po, mabuhay ang Senado, mabuhay ang ating bansang minamahal.