Highlights of statements on the proposed 2024 DepEd budget
By Senator Pia S. Cayetano
Senior Vice Chair, Senate Finance Committee

PART 1: RESPONSE TO SENATORS BATO DELA ROSA, FRANCIS TOLENTINO & JINGGOY ESTRADA

Mr President, the violation of the conduct of a teacher, which would amount to a violation of election laws, would be under the jurisdiction of Comelec. But Deped can receive these complaints and forward it... But the ultimate judge or the ones who would hear these offenses would be Comelec, not Deped.

PART 2: RESPONSES TO SENATE MINORITY LEADER KOKO PIMENTEL

Mr President, the breakdown would be as follows:

Support to school and learners program, that's the teaching overload pay, that's P200 million; and that 200 million is further distributed as follows: elementary P40 million; junior high school P60 million; senior high school P100 million.

And then there is a special hardship allowance, this is P300 million

The School Voucher Program, P1 billion

The Educational Human Resource Development Program, which is the training of teachers for the Matatag Curriculum, that is P1.5 billion

That's for Deped, and then there is an additional P69 million for ECCD, that's the early childhood [education]; then P35.42 million for NAS; P25 million for NBDB; and then P20 million for NCCT; and P350 million for the National Museum... The latter ones were all attached agencies, your honor.
***

The NEP was P714.16 billion and our Senate report came out as P718.08 billion.
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So, ang Senate nagtaas po tayo ng almost P4 billion, ang House nagtaas ng P395 million. Pero pwede niyo ho ako tanungin kung saan ho napunta yun.
***

I hesitate to answer, your honor, because I don't want to violate the executive session, because there was some kind of decision made there, your honor. So can I ask for a minute suspension? ***

What the House did upon examination of the GAB that was submitted to us is they put it under the Government Assistance and Subsidies Educational Service Contracting. Ito po yung tinatawag na GASTPE.
*""

It's under the operations of schools, specifically... Mr President, I apologize for the delay, I am reconciling different responses that I am getting... Mr President, obviously we received this over the weekend. Yun na nga, our LBRMO, our in-house department assisting us, and the office of Deped need to reconcile. I would rather na isa lang ang mabigay kong sagot... So if his honor could move on to a different issue? Because I didn't know that they had different numbers.
***

What we have, your honor, is upon receipt of the GAB, we retained that amount in the GASTPE, as I reported earlier.
***

Mr President, the Office of Deped, VP/Secretary, has a statement. And I'll read it:

"We are all parents who want to protect our children. Ang seguridad ng mga bata ay seguridad ng kinabukasan ng ating bayan. Nonetheless, Deped will no longer pursue confidential funds. We humbly request that the funds be realigned to the National Learning Recovery Program because we do not expect good scores for the 2022 PISA result coming out this December."
***

Ito yung National Learning Recovery Program, ito po yung extra efforts and initiatives to train or to provide additional training for our teachers on the basics, yung kanilang reading, comprehension, math, which is really the foundation of learning, your honor.
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Mr President, the National Learning Recovery Program has 5 sub-programs: National Learning Camp; National Reading Program; National Mathematics Program; National Science and Technology Program; and other similar programs to support learning recovery efforts.
***

Mr President, itong binabasa ko na National Learning Recovery Program and the sub-items are all under the Basic Education Curriculum.
***

The Basic Education Curriculum that I mentioned is under the Education Policy Development Program.
***

Again sorry, Mr President, the data we have is not presented as CO, kasi the COs are tucked into each program. So for example, Basic Education Facilities, may CO component yun. So I have to dissect each one to give his honor an accurate response kung ano ang CO.
***

P2.5 million pero that includes a budget for support, like naka-compute po yun na for how many classrooms, may bathroom, ganun po ang computation nun, Mr President.
***

Mr President, yes, that is actually a combination of new classrooms, repairs, in other words, 8,000 plus new classrooms are made available.
***

Mr President, they actually have a request for repairs, and this is the amount that we discussed with Sen JV earlier na nabawasan po under the GAB, under the House version, ang budget nila for repairs...
***

Mr President, let me explain, the discussion we had with Sen JV earlier is the difference between the NEP, which is from the DBM, and the GAB. We support the NEP version because we want to have a bigger budget for repairs. But officially what we have in the Committee Report is the GAB, because of the time constraints we had, we just adopt the House. But that is not the recommendation of the Chair, and we have a lot of support from our colleagues, if I am not mistaken, also the Chairman of the Committee on Finance.
***

Mr President, as pointed out in the interpellation of our colleague, Sen JV Ejercito, the House put P5 billion into the new construction. So construction pa rin of facilities, but they put it there and they have identified, as pointed out by Sen JV, the schools, the areas. And that's why our colleague was expressing concern that Deped would be deprived of their ability to determine what are the priority areas. And we put on record what are the guidelines for determining the priority areas.
**#

We adopted the version of the GAB, Mr President. Pero for the record...yung sinubmit natin po is the NEP version. So I believe that there are constraints that occurred precisely because of the timing of the submission. To just put on record that like Sen JV, we support the budget for the repairs would not be touched, as provided in the NEP, and the construction is still there, but not at the expense of the repairs that need to be done.
***

There are 202,000 classrooms in various states of disrepair...these need to be repaired, in other words...some are partially used... 202,000 as reported are in various states of disrepair. Of the 202,000, 20,700 cannot be used at all. So 10 percent, more or less.
***

To give us an idea of the cost, of course it's an average because there are different states. But the P6.5 billion that was in the NEP would have repaired 10,200 classrooms. So half of itong 20,700 na not usable, half of that will become usable.
***

Right now, in our Committee Report, ang naiwan na lang is 1.5. So this Committee will propose that the P5 billion put in the new will be returned to the line item on repairs and rehabilitation, as requested... It will be able to repair 10,200 classrooms.
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Without hesitation, the answer of Deped is yes, opo.
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Separate kasi po ang inventory of classrooms that need to be repaired doon sa new construction... When his honor asked the question, ako na kusang nagbato na halo-halo ba yan, sinagot nila na halo-halo. So ngayon nililiwanag nila na hindi po. Ang new construction, new construction lang talaga. Yung repair, repair lang talaga...
***

Itong 202,000 schools identified for repair still need to be repaired kasi we are making do with those classrooms. So not in great form pero napagta-tyagaan. Siguro nagko-combine sila ng ibang classroom, hindi maganda ang environment doon, so kailangan pa rin maayos ito, on top of the 159,000.
***

Actually, to be clear, there are test results that are expected by December. That's a date that we do not control because these are tests that are happening all over the world. The results are released. So yung results na yan, that's not the one that we expect to see improvement, because there are children who were pandemic educated. So yung 150 na pinag-uusapan natin is enhancing the curriculum basically, which we hope to see results in the years to come, hindi naman po agad-agad, hindi naman bukas. So tama ba, si PISA, every 4 years? So the next testing will be 2025, would we see results by then, 2 years? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. Me lang, as a daughter of an educator, it takes time.
***

It's both for teachers and students. Because for the outcome that we want to present itself to us, then it also starts with the teachers. So may teachers' training yan then the outcomes. So all of these, these two components are both part of the program.
***

Mr President, can I go back to his honor's question which I promised kapag na-reconcile? Diba I mentioned earlier that the GAB is higher by P395 million, and his honor asked saan nilagay. So my response to that is it is placed in the General Management and Supervision, specifically operation of schools. P11 million is in the division of Mandaluyong; P40 million in the division of Marikina; and P300 million in the Bicol region... Actually, naka-lump sum siya... Normally, under the division, there's PS, MOOE, CO. May division yun... Dito po kasi sa cities in Metro Manila, nakalagay, division. It's the way they divide the territories. Pero sa Bicol, it's Region 5. It's broken down into various divisions: division of Albay, Camarines Norte... They are placed in MOOE.
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So accounted for so far yung P355 million. Hinahanap pa ng LBRMO natin ang balance of P40 million.