Even Davao City doesn't have the means to solve its local problem on classroom shortage.
Vice President and concurrent Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sara Duterte made this admission Wednesday, Sept. 14 as she tried to describe the scale of the classroom deficit in the Philippines.
During the House Committee on Appropriations' consideration of the DepEd's proposed 2023 budget worth P709 billion, Duterte called for the lifting of a Department of Budget and Management-National Budget Memorandum (DBM-NBM) that would loosen the rule on the funding of classrooms in local government units (LGUs) by the national government.
"We would like to seek your support in our stand of the lifting of the provision for basic education and classroom building in DBM-NBM 138 series of 2021," Duterte said during the tail end of her presention on the DepEd budget.
"This is the order for the DepEd to build only classrooms in the fifth and sixth class municipalities because as a former mayor, I believe even Davao City cannot address the classroom shortage in our city. So hindi po kaya yan, lalung lalo na ng mga (That's not doable, especially for) 1st to 4th class municipalities," she said.
For perspective, Davao City is not just a normal city; it's the 8th richest city in the Philippines--something that Duterte repeatedly boasted about during the 2022 poll campaign period. Cities enjoy more progress than municipalities.
Like quicksand
"I've described our classroom shortage as a situation of a quicksand, which due to meager budgets given to construction annually, we cannot even address the requirements due to enrolment increase and the shortage that keeps piling up year in and year out," said Duterte, a former multiple term Davao chief executive.
She also lamented over how the problems of the local education sector have stuck around unsolved for the years.
"Yung problema po natin 10 years ago is problema pa rin natin hanggang ngayon (Our problem 10 years ago is still our problem today). So dapat po (what we should do is) we think outside of the box already with regard to basic education."
The DepEd bared during the hearing that 149,806 classrooms in the country need major repairs. Some 167,901 new classrooms also need to be built in order to address the spike in enrolment, the agency said.
Duterte ended her presentation by telling the House members, " I sincerely thank the members of this committee for listening to our plans for next year and beyond. I know that the challenges we are facing are huge, and we need you support in our quest to think out of the box for our Filipino learners."