Vice President Sara Duterte (Facebook)

Two ranking members of the House of Representatives has slammed Vice President Sara Duterte’s “apparent incompetence” in utilizing the Department of Education’s (DepEd) 2023 Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) funds, which amounts to P2.08 billion.

In a statement, House Assistant Majority Leaders Paolo Ortega (La Union 1st district) and Jay Khonghun (Zambales 1st district) said this suppose failure to tap the funds is equal to “criminal negligence” as it exposes young Filipino learners and public school personnel to risk.

“The sheer absence of concern regarding the welfare of our young learners hints at an appalling level of incompetence by the person in charge,” said Khonghun.

“So much resources were either unused or misused is simply disgraceful, but the fact that it is the public school students who were victimized is nothing short of criminal,” he stressed.

DepEd’s 2023 budget, which was under the leadership of Vice President Duterte at that time, received an allocation of P2.14 billion for its Disaster Preparedness and Response Program (DPRP) and another P2 billion for Quick Response Fund (QRF).

The allocation, totaling to P4.14 billion, was in addition to the P2.24 billion DRRM Funds still unused from prior years at the beginning of 2023.

Khonghun and Ortega stressed that despite the availability of these funds, the DepEd still failed to ensure that appropriate facilities and equipment were established in government schools. These were supposed to mitigate the impact of disasters and reduce possible risks involved.

“In Mindanao, there are hundreds of learners in public elementary schools who had no choice but to attend classes in school buildings that were already weakened and rendered unsafe by a recent Magnitude 6 earthquake,” Ortega shared.

“Millions in taxpayers money was already spent on Temporary Learning Spaces (TLS) but these were not put to good use,” he pointed out.

The House leaders, in particular, flagged the Schools Division Office (SDO) of the Island Garden City of Samal, as identified in a Commission on Audit (COA) report.

According to the report, several schools were found to have visible cracks in classrooms and school buildings that were still being used. TLS of schools were also not usable because there was no electricity.

“These are basic stuff that should have been anticipated and properly addressed,” noted Khonghun.

The COA has warned that the improper handling of funds that were supposed to finalize the TLS “left the students little option but to use classrooms that are already unsafe”.

Khonghun and Ortega said the “weak management” of DepEd during Duterte’s tenure as secretary caused deterioration in fiscal discipline which led to numerous irregularities in the utilization of disaster funds.

Among the reported anomalies were improper spending of DRRM for travel, accommodation, and seminars by SDO officials, poor-quality workmanship on school buildings and support facilities, program of work on school structures were ignored, and falsified reports on work accomplishments and progress billings.