Amid a series of debt and promises, the University continues to deal with bottlenecks that cause pending payments toward its concessionaires.
Last June 19, Jean Ponce (II, BSMS-CS) was denied a catering request after offering to pay Perico’s Grill (Perico’s) for its service after it was fulfilled. He was told that Perico’s only accepts upfront payments “because of debts incurred by many student organizations.”
“What about us?”
Inquiries with the concessionaire revealed that the Office of Student Leadership Involvement, Formation, and Empowerment (SLIFE) and various student organizations under the Council of Student Organizations (CSO) have had an outstanding balance of P170,050, which was only settled last September, over two years after the first charge was made. This delay stemmed from lapses in leadership turnover. When organization officers end their terms, some graduate without closing all financial transactions. Successors are expected to settle what remains, but these often go unaddressed.
Perico’s owner Jose Marimla shared that when they tried to follow up on the payments, they often discovered that the student officer who had availed of their services could no longer be reached. “I would not want to compromise the goodwill that we have between different organizations and Perico’s Grill,” he remarked.
The LaSallian reached out to SLIFE Director James Laxa for a comment regarding the outstanding balance. He reiterated the office’s commitment to “fulfilling all financial obligations at the soonest time possible.”
Albeit late, SLIFE fulfilled the promises on their end with Perico’s Grill.
Before receiving the payment, Marimla recounted the struggles they went through when it came to contacting the offices and responsible officers. The business had also asked for assistance in tracing the students who had secured their catering in the past, but the common response was that “the officer was no longer enrolled in the institution.”
“Paano na kami?” Marimla said.
(What about us?)
Assistant administrator Janice Tanyo added that when they followed up with the responsible organizations and office, they were informed that the matter should have been coordinated with the student or the organization that placed the order.
“Paano namin [magagawa] ‘yun? Kung ‘yung ibang students ‘di na rin nakikipag-communicate sa amin, kasi nga graduate [na] ‘yung iba.”
(How can we do that when the other students do not even communicate with us anymore, because the others have already graduated?)
According to Marimla, collections typically take one to two months, but this particular case “took some time.” It became a weekly routine for them to follow up on the payments of the different clients they had rendered service to. Tanyo added that daily operations, including catering and the cafeteria on the second floor of the Enrique M. Razon Sports Center, were heavily impacted. “Uutangin [pa] namin sa supplier para [lang] makapagtinda [kami],” she stated.
(We’ll borrow from the supplier so that we can sell.)
One step forward, two steps back
To prevent similar incidents, Marimla said that Perico’s Grill will no longer accept non-upfront payments. “For organizations, now, we require down payments. Otherwise, we cannot cater [to] their request,” he affirmed.
The LaSallian sought comment from CSO on the matter, but the council has since declined interviews with the publication due to supervisory limitations.
Meanwhile, the University Student Government (USG) acknowledged that it also experiences bureaucratic logjams, but internal processes keep operations in check.
“[The] USG has protocols in place for turnovers to the next officer with mandates for proper handover of resources, documents, and information, and corresponding penalties for noncompliance, all found within our laws,” former Secretary Denise Lauren stated.
Lauren detailed that officers are given sufficient terms to complete necessary tasks and that the USG works closely with SLIFE in “aligning shared efforts to prevent such issues from escalating, making sure that student needs are met through proactive measures.”
Despite these shared efforts to prevent lapses, pending payments force concessionaries to continue operations while chasing after organizations with debts owed to them. The University, in turn, has been no stranger to delayed payments and logjams, improper leadership transitions, and the lack of student accountability.
Former Dean of Student Affairs Dr. Christine Ballada stated in a previous interview with The LaSallian that finance executives who vacate their posts in the mid-term often cause complications due to the lack of proper turnover even in the University’s administration. This mirrors the challenges faced by student organizations whose officers graduate without settling their responsibilities.
In another interview with The LaSallian, Laxa said his office has created teams to focus on financial documentation and overdue payments to different departments and vendors before the year ends. Yet, the question remains: how much does the University still owe its concessionaires—and how many have stopped pursuing what is owed to them?
ERRATUM: November 18, 2025
An earlier version of the article incorrectly referred to James Laxa as the former SLIFE director, when he is still in office. The publication has since corrected the error and apologizes for the oversight.
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s October 2025 issue. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSOct2025.
