Highlights of sponsorship of the basic education budget
Senator Pia S. Cayetano
Senior Vice Chair, Senate Committee on Finance

Mr. President, I am ready to sponsor the budget of the following:

• Department of Education, Office of the Secretary, with total new appropriations of P676,245,962,000;

• Early Childhood Care and Development Council with total new appropriations of P291,798,000;

• National Academy of Sports with total new appropriation of P356,776,000;

• National Book Development Board with a total new appropriation of P121,828,000;

• National Council for Children's Television with a total new appropriation of P71,570,000;

• National Museum of the Philippines, with a total new appropriation of P944,407.000; and

• Philippine High School for the Arts, with a total new appropriation of P107,171,000.

As I have mentioned in my co-sponsorship speech, over the years, this is my fourth year handling DepEd and its attached agencies' budgets. It has been our goal to aim for a future-proof budget that is also sustainable, taking into account the concept of intergenerational fairness, [and] preparing the future generation.

I thank the Chair, Sen. Sonny Angara, for his full support on these efforts. We are ready, the Vice President and Secretary of DepEd, Sara Duterte is here along with her Usecs. and other officers who can help this representation respond to the questions of our colleagues.

It is 2:36, I will mention the time again when we are done.

Note: part 1, responding to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian

On the resumption of full face-to-face classes in public schools

I must interrupt you and join you in commending the Secretary, the Vice President and the team for being very firm on this. We've come a long way just because of this firm policy, and I am sorry to add this, but unlike higher education, which we will deal with later.

On the classroom shortage

Mr President, the classroom shortage for the latest computation is 167,901 classrooms, this is based on the national school building inventory (NSBI) of 2019 for school year 2019-2022.

As I pick up those figures, let me just point out because we may have viewers who will recall that the figure we put out during the [committee] hearing was different, it was 91,156 classrooms. But they had told us last time that they were still updating that. So this figure is now 167,000.

His honor will recall that during the hearing, I presented scenarios to fill in, address the gap within 6 years, during the term of this administration, and then how long it would take if we use the current budget allocated, which is P5.95 B. That was for the 91,000, not even for the latest 167,000. And that would take 60 years. So sino ba Benjamin natin? Baka yun na lang ang buhay kapag natapos ang gap na yun for the 91,000 gap.

But now, the funding requirement to complete all construction of school buildings and repair... For the 167,901 classroom shortage, that would require 419,752,500,000.

On absorptive capacity (to build new classrooms)

That is a big problem, the absorptive capacity, let's put that on record because kung maghahagilap tayo ng pondo kung sa maghahagilap lang, our Chairman can produce but it's really the absorptive capacity... that is the bigger problem. On how we will fund that. We can't even discuss that, it's not even going to happen in a year or two or three years.

So that's why the chart I had prepared during the hearing gave us options on how we're going to spread out that deficit, which I actually discussed with Sec. [Amenah Pangandaman] of DBM.

On the number of damaged classrooms

The total number of damaged classrooms for 2022, it's actually much lower than 2021 for the information of everyone, is 5,511 classrooms. But the reason why I have a table is because even if we spend for 2022, may nasira noong 2020, 2019, and all the way back to 2016. So the grand total is 37,795 classrooms that need to be repaired [and] the budget would be P45.7 billion.

On Special Education (SPED)

Mr President, P8-10 million [is needed] to convert a SPED center to ILRC [Inclusive Learning Resource Center]. Mr President, for the information of our colleagues... in a school, the ideal is to have a SPED center, but the ILRC is a center where all the support services are available. So the ILRC is not a classroom where teaching and learning happen, but a support service area where students can be assessed, allied services like physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, can happen...

And on that note, P8-10 million is the bare minimum. Because if you look at the advances in science, to be able to come up with all these interventions, maliit ang P8-10 million na yan, but we have to start somewhere.

On procurement of learning materials, and the PS-DBM issue

Mr President, the response I have is this, it's a procurement problem.. I was also told now that what they're doing to address this procurement problem. They will have a suppliers' forum so they can hear directly from the suppliers what products are available out there. And also for the record, they are handling it themselves, no longer through PS-DBM.