THE Senate Committee on Finance has granted the request of Senator Sherwin Gatchalian to augment the Department of Education’s (DepEd) funds for school electrification.
The committee report on the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for fiscal year 2025 (House Bill No. 10800) added P500 million to the P1.295 billion allotted for the school clectrification program.
The program seeks to energize off-grid schools and modernize the electrical systems of the on-grid ones.
“As we all know, some of our schools are still left in the dark, and I would like to thank the Senate Committee on Finance for adding P500 million to the school electrification program,” Gatchalian said during his interpellation of the DepEd’s proposed budget for 2025.
While other countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia already achieved universal access, the Philippines still faces challenges regarding the complete electrification of schools, he added.
Citing DepEd data, a 2024 research paper by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies showed that 1,562 schools still had no power supply as of 2020. The study also found that as of 2020, some 39,335 schools need upgrading of their electrical connections.
