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On Deped’s budget: Sen. Pia Cayetano, during the marathon hybrid session Monday, November 22, 2021 on the proposed 2022 budget of the Department of Education (DepEd) and its attached agencies, says she is very proud that schools are finally welcoming students back to the classroom after two years of distance learning. Cayetano congratulated Education Secretary Leonor Briones and her team for “relentlessly pushing hard” for the President to acknowledge the importance of the resumption of classes for young learners. “I wish for the success of the pilot implementation which just started. My fervent wish is that the pilot would be expanded. Children need to be in school. Our job is to make it as safe as possible and to be able to react depending on the situation,” Cayetano said. She said the DepEd’s proposed budget for next year is P591.97 billion which is almost 4 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) with the ideal budget pegged at 4 percent of GDP. (Henzberg Austria/Senate PRIB)