President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has signed Executive Order No. 124, establishing the Education Philippines (EduPhil) Program to position the country as a destination for international students pursuing higher education, research, and training. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) will lead the program’s implementation.
The order, signed September 8 and made public Thursday, frames international education as a driver of economic growth and human capital development. For Philippine higher education institutions, many of which have spent years courting foreign enrollees from South Korea, India, and the Middle East with limited coordinated government support, the order creates the first unified national framework for that effort.
Research citing CHED figures has noted that foreign student numbers in the country nearly tripled over the past decade yet stayed under 10,000, a gap which the new program is meant to close through streamlined visa processing and clearer institutional pathways.
EO 124 directs CHED to advance academic cooperation, research collaboration, and global engagement among Philippine institutions, while also handling the entry, stay, and visa processing of international students more efficiently. The order also reconstitutes the Inter-Agency Committee on Foreign Students, formed in 2000 under EO 285, as the EduPhil Task Force.
CHED will chair the task force, with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) as vice chair. Other members include the Bureau of Immigration, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the Department of Tourism, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, and the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC). The task force may also invite representatives from other agencies, academic institutions, and stakeholders to sit in as observers, resource speakers, or technical advisers.
Among its mandates, the task force must develop a five-year international education promotion strategy and oversee the EduPhil Portal, described in the order as a secure, interoperable digital platform for international student documentation, institutional endorsement tracking, and inter-agency referral. The portal is intended to consolidate processes currently handled across multiple agencies, a point of friction that has been cited as a deterrent for prospective foreign students weighing study options in the region.
The task force is also tasked with recommending measures to streamline visa processing and to facilitate the reciprocal recognition of academic degrees and credentials between the Philippines and other countries. It must submit an annual report to the President through the CHED chairperson.
EO 124 calls for a whole-of-government approach, with all relevant agencies directed to provide support for the program’s implementation. Initial funding will come from existing appropriations of CHED and other concerned agencies, with future funding needs to be included in their subsequent budget proposals.
The order took effect immediately upon publication. CHED and the reconstituted EduPhil Task Force have yet to announce a timeline for rolling out the EduPhil Portal or the five-year promotion strategy required under the order.
