Press Release
January 27, 2009

Increased budget for education still insufficient--Gordon

Independent Senator Richard J. Gordon today said that the increase of funds for education is a good start to improve the country's educational system but stressed that the budget is still insufficient to cover all backlogs in school infrastructure..

While the Senate and the House of Representatives both agreed to increase the budget for education, notably for the building of classrooms, Gordon said that there are other health care and education infrastructures that the public school system lacks.

"It is a good development that my colleagues agreed to allocate more funds for the educational system, specifically in building more classrooms. However, the lack of classrooms is just a small part of a more bigger problem," he said.

In the 2009 General Appropriations Act, Congress increased the allotted budget for the construction of classrooms from P3 to P8 billion. Data from the Department of Education (DepEd) reveals that classroom shortage at present is more or less at 12,000.

Gordon explained that aside from classroom backlogs, public schools in the country also lack at least four million seats, 63 million textbooks, 39,000 teachers and 8,000 principals.. To fill these gaps alone, the government would need at least P15 billion, he added.

Furthermore, he continued, there is a need for more health manpower, a continuous and effective feeding program, a comprehensive medical and dental treatment for pupils and their teachers, establishment of fully-functional school clinics, and the increase in the salary of teachers.

Gordon, chairman of the Senate committee on government corporations and public enterprises, said budget from the government alone would not be enough to fund the urgent needs of the public school system, which is why he proposed the creation of a Health and Education Acceleration Program (HEAP) Corporation.

"The rehabilitation and improvement of our public school system is an urgent need that we must immediately address. We should realize that education is the backbone of a country and we should invest on it," he said.

Under the Senate Bill 2402, the HEAP Corporation will be a government corporation that will spearhead the rehabilitation and acceleration of education and health infrastructures in the country.

It seeks to tap a small portion of the total net revenue from all mobile phone text messages sent from the networks of domestic mobile phone service providers.

"There are approximately two billion text messages sent a day. If we get 10 percent, that would be P200 million a day and P73 billion a year.. That is more than enough to fill up all the gaps in health and education infrastructure in a year's time," he said.

With a corporation handling the physical and infrastructural requirements in public schools, Gordon added that the DepEd and Department of Health can concentrate on their duties and would not be bothered of logistical requirements.

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