The Department of Education (DepEd) found an ally on Tuesday (Sept. 15) in Assistant Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Representative France Castro after she sought the restoration of its slashed funding allocations for its several programs for next year. 

During the House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations on the DepEd’s proposed 2021 budget, the Makabayan lawmaker called on her colleagues to restore the following budget cuts in the DepEd’s budget for 2021: 

-P5.36 million under the Basic Education Facilities that will create more classrooms, 
-P5.06 million for the Basic Education Curriculum,
-P19.57 million from the Early Language Literacy and Numeracy Program,
-the P500 million for the School-Based Feeding Program
-P5 billion from Last Mile Schools Program 
-P8.61 million cut from the Teacher Quality Development Program.

"According to the agency, education must continue, but the budget does not reflect the continuity of education during the pandemic,” Castro said. 

She said the Duterte government’s decision in making DepEd as only the second highest recipient of funding allocation for 2021 is “unprecedented,” considering that traditionally, the agency got the biggest chunk of the proposed national budget. 

Castro laments that the education program that caters to learners with disabilities; and school dental health program got zero funding.

There were also zero budget allocations for the World Teachers' Day incentive and the annual medical check up for teachers amounting to P1,000 per teacher and P500 per teacher respectively, she noted.

"To be able to adequately prepare for a safe reopening of schools amid the pandemic, the Duterte administration should allocate more funds for education," Castro said. 

"We see in the 2021 proposed national budget that providing access to safe and quality education is still not a priority of the Duterte administration,” she said.

She proposed that the P16.44 billion fund allocated for the Support to the Barangay Development Program of  the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) be given to the DepEd to ensure the full implementation of its programs. 

 "There is more than enough funds from the budget allocation of the NTF-ELCAC to adequately fund these programs of the Department of Education that would directly affect the access and quality of education our children would receive,” Castro said. 

When asked if the DepEd would want to restore the budget items that were slashed by the DBM, Sevilla said: "There is no agency that would not want that their proposal be granted. The answer is yes, for all these programs we have planned and proposed for what we think can be implemented next year.”