Education Secretary Sonny Angara said he received assurance from President Marcos that the reduction in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) 2025 budget would be addressed.
This came after the Bicameral Conference Committee approved a lower allocation for the agency, citing inefficiencies in its past spending.
“In past years, Congress has always approved a higher budget than what the President requested. For whatever reason, this will not be the case in 2025. Fortunately, the President himself told us that he will remedy the matter,” Angara said in a statement on Sunday.
The education secretary was not specific on what Mr. Marcos promised to do to compensate for the diminished funding.
A budget of P748.6 billion was initially proposed for DepEd, but it was cut down to P737 billion in the reconciled General Appropriations Bill (GAB) following the Bicameral deliberations concluded last week.
“After all the promises and nice words, sadly Congress cut the President’s proposed budget for the Department of Education, particularly P10 billion for computerization. This, despite the President’s SONA where he asked Congress to help bridge the ‘digital divide’,” Angara lamented.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives stood firm on slashing P10 billion from the DepEd’s 2025 computerization budget, calling out the agency’s glaring inefficiency and alleged fund mismanagement.
1-Rider party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez dismissed the objections of DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara, who earlier criticized the budget cut.
“Secretary Angara may argue that education funding is sacrosanct, but Congress cannot keep throwing good money after bad. This is not about depriving education. It’s about ensuring proper fund use and accountability,” he said.
“While it is unfortunate that Secretary Sonny inherited the problems and scandals left behind by his predecessor, Vice President Sara Duterte, he knows that the law is clear: unused funds must be accounted for before new allocations can be made. Now that he’s education secretary, he should focus on fixing DepEd’s internal mess instead of crying foul about budget decisions,” the lawmaker added.
Noting DepEd’s poor track record, Gutierrez cited the Commission on Audit’s report showing DepEd disbursed only P2.075 billion of its P11.36 billion 2023 budget for information communication and technology equipment.
“This isn’t just inefficiency — it’s negligence,” he said.
DepEd’s failure to deliver on its mandates justifies Congress’s decision to reallocate funds, he emphasized.
“We know it’s extremely difficult for Secretary Angara to defend DepEd’s lack of action when the Philippines is already at rock bottom in global education rankings. A teacher-to-computer ratio of 30:1 is unacceptable and we have VP Sara to blame for it,” he maintained.
