ON its founding anniversary today, May 18, 2026, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) finds itself at a pivotal moment. Pending in the Senate is Senate Bill 1427, which seeks to amend and strengthen the commission’s three-decade-old charter. This is more than a legislative update. It is an opportunity to clarify CHED’s mission, improve its governance, and align its powers with the vision of its founders.
When CHED was created in 1994, it emerged from a broad reform agenda for the Philippine education system crafted by the first Congressional Commission on Education, or Edcom, in 1992. That effort was authored and chaired by Senate President Edgardo Angara, who saw CHED not merely as a regulator, but as a developmental institution — one that would help operationalize and strengthen the constitutional academic freedom of higher education institutions.
Seen in that light, the Senate committee on higher education’s recent decision to abandon its proposal to expand CHED’s powers to include quasi-judicial or adjudicatory functions is a welcome development. It keeps the commission aligned with its original purpose. CHED was never intended to become a tribunal. Its core role is to guide, develop and uphold the conditions that allow higher education institutions to thrive.
Still, if the goal is to build a CHED that is both empowered and accountable, the charter revision must go further and be guided by several key principles.
First, the law must ensure structural efficiency and clear functional delineation. It should define when the commission acts as a collegial body en banc and when authority should be exercised through the chairperson as head of agency. Administrative functions should be centralized under the chairperson to ensure executive agility and coherent implementation. Developmental and policy-making functions, however, should remain the sole purview of the commission en banc, preserving deliberation in decisions that shape the entire sector.
Second, the revised charter must promote institutional transparency. The deliberations of the commission en banc often serve as the blueprint for higher education policy. These discussions should therefore be made part of the public record. Making such records accessible to stakeholders would not only strengthen transparency but also provide institutions with the context needed to understand and comply with policy directives.
Third, the law should ensure private sector representation. Philippine higher education is not composed solely of public institutions. Private higher education institutions play a central role in educating the nation’s students, and their concerns deserve direct representation at the policymaking level. The charter should therefore require the designation of a commissioner from the private higher education sector, with a mandate to oversee and advocate for policies affecting private higher education institutions.
Fourth, the charter must address policy uniformity and regional alignment. CHED’s authority is weakened when standards are implemented inconsistently across regions. An uneven, unpredictable and unstable regulatory environment undermines both compliance and confidence. The law should provide a statutory definition of the roles and authorities of CHED regional offices to ensure strict alignment with the central office and more predictable governance nationwide.
Fifth, the Senate should seriously consider expanding leadership eligibility for the CHED chairperson. Removing the rigid “earned doctorate” requirement would widen the pool of qualified candidates and allow the president to appoint leaders with strong executive and administrative expertise, even if they come from varied professional backgrounds. Leading a complex government agency requires more than academic credentials alone; it demands institutional leadership, management competence, and the ability to steer reform.
Most important of all, the new CHED charter must require the commission to operationalize academic freedom as a concrete strategy for improving Philippine higher education. Academic freedom should not remain an abstract constitutional principle. It must be translated into measurable outcomes, supported by clear key performance indicators, and embedded in the way CHED formulates policy, evaluates institutions and promotes quality.
The urgency of amending the CHED charter also highlights the need to update the Manual of Regulations for Private Higher Education Institutions, or Morphei, particularly CMO 40, series of 2008. As the manual defines CHED’s governance framework, the functions of its offices, and the prevailing institutional and program standards for higher education institutions, it must evolve in step with any new legislative reforms.
Thirty-two years after Edcom laid the groundwork for educational reform, the question is no longer whether CHED should be strengthened. It should be. The real question is how. If Congress truly wants a stronger Commission on Higher Education, it must resist the temptation to make CHED more punitive or more bureaucratic. Instead, it should build a commission that is development-oriented, transparent, well-structured, representative and faithful to the principle of academic freedom.
That would not only honor the vision of CHED’s founders. It would also give Philippine higher education the kind of institution it now urgently needs.