1-Rider Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez (left), Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)

"This is not about depriving education; it’s about ensuring proper fund use."

1-Rider Party-list Rep. Rodge Gutierrez gave this justification for Congress' decision to reduce the Department of Education’s (DepEd) 2025 computerization budget by a significant P10 billion, even as he highlighted the "problems and scandals" that were left in the agency by Vice President Sara Duterte.

Gutierrez, a member of the "Young Guns" bloc in the House of Representatives, was mainly reacting to current DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara's criticisms on the budget reduction. 

“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,” Gutierrez stressed.

With the education sector in disarray, Gutierrez and lawmakers insisted the cut wasn't an attack on education but a wake-up call for DepEd to prioritize effective governance over bloated budgets.

"While it's unfortunate that Secretary Sonny inherited the problems and scandals left behind by his predecessor, Vice President Sara Duterte, Secretary Angara knows that the law is clear: unused funds must be accounted for before new allocations can be made," said the lawyer-congressman.

Gutierrez went on to advise Angara to "focus on fixing DepEd’s internal mess instead of crying foul about budget decisions". 

Angara is a former senator. He was plucked from the upper chamber to replace Duterte as DepEd chief back in July.

Congress (House and the Senate) recently ratified the Bicameral Conference Committee report on the P6.352-trillion 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) or national budget. 

Citing DepEd's poor track record, the party-list solon pointed to the Commission on Audit’s (COA) report, which revealed that DepEd disbursed only P2.075 billion of its P11.36 billion 2023 budget for ICT equipment. 

“This isn’t just inefficiency—it’s negligence,” Gutierrez noted. He added that DepEd’s failure to deliver on its mandates justifies Congress’s decision to reallocate funds.

The issue isn’t new. DepEd ICT Director Ferdinand Pitagan admitted during a September budget hearing that 12,022 laptops for teachers and 7,558 for non-teaching personnel remained undelivered by end-2023.

"And that's just for 2023, we're not even talking about the computerization budget for 2024 and the year is almost over," said the Young Guns solon.

Critics had scored the agency for the laptop procurement mess under Vice President Sara Duterte’s term, where overpriced units drained resources without meeting schools’ needs.

"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,” Gutierrez said.

The Philippines ranked 76th out of 81 countries in reading and mathematics in the 2023 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).