Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sonny Angara on Tuesday, January 20, led the turnover and blessing of a new four-storey, 16-classroom school building at Santiago Elementary School, underscoring the department’s push to ease classroom congestion while accelerating long-delayed teacher career progression reforms.

In a statement, DepEd said the newly completed building aims to address overcrowding in public schools in the Schools Division Office (SDO) General Trias City, one of the country’s fastest-growing urban areas, where rapid enrollment increases have strained classroom space and daily school operations.

“Proven naman po ’yan—kapag siksikan ang mga silid, hindi makapagturo nang maigi ang teachers. Ayaw na po natin ng shifting as much as possible (It has been proven that when classrooms are overcrowded, teachers cannot teach effectively. We want to avoid shifting classes as much as possible),” Angara said, linking the infrastructure project to the education reform agenda of President Marcos.

Equipped with smart televisions, armchairs, fire alarms, and emergency lighting, the new facility enhances the capacity of Santiago Elementary School, which currently serves over 2,400 learners.

The project was implemented through close coordination between DepEd and the General Trias City government, which utilized its Special Education Fund (SEF) to fast-track school infrastructure development.

Over the past three years, more than 100 classrooms have been completed or are under construction across the division, significantly easing congestion in several schools.

Angara said DepEd is also implementing nationwide flexibility measures to speed up classroom delivery, including allowing local government units (LGUs) to build parallel school facilities, expanding public-private partnerships, and strengthening the Adopt-A-School Program to tap private sector support.

“First time in history na gagawin—ibababa na ang pera sa mga LGU, through decentralization of power and resources (For the first time in history, funds will be directly downloaded to LGUs through decentralization of power and resources),” he stressed, noting that these approaches are meant to complement national funding and avoid delays in high-need areas.

Following the building turnover, Angara presided over the mass oathtaking of 542 teachers from the Cavite cluster who were promoted under the Expanded Career Progression (ECP) System, with more than half coming from SDO General Trias City.

For many educators, the promotions marked the end of years—sometimes decades—of stalled career movement that had affected morale and retention.

One of the newly promoted teachers, Carmen R. Zorilla, now a Teacher IV at Tropical Village Elementary School, shared her experience after spending 28 years as a Teacher I.

“Ang sukatan ng tagumpay ko ay ang bawat batang natutong bumasa, umunawa, at mangarap. Hindi ko po inakalang darating ang panahong ito na mapo-promote ako (The measure of my success is every child who has learned to read, understand, and dream. I never imagined that this time would come—that I would be promoted),” Zorilla said, thanking the Marcos administration and DepEd for making career advancement possible.

She added that the ECP reforms ensure that no teacher will retire without the opportunity for promotion, calling it a long-overdue recognition of educators’ service.

Angara said the scale of promotions under the ECP system represents a historic shift for DepEd.

“Ang estimate po natin, before 2026 ends, basta nag-release na po ang pera, makakapag-promote tayo ng 100,000 teaching positions (We estimate that before the end of 2026, once the funds are released, we can promote up to 100,000 teaching positions),” Angara said.

”First time sa kasaysayan po ng DepEd na ganyang karami ang na-promote at nabigyan ng pagkilala (For the first time in DepEd history, this many have been promoted and given recognition),” he added.

Nationwide, DepEd has already hired 27,080 teachers, reclassified 16,025 educators, and processed thousands of new teaching, school leadership, guidance counseling, and administrative positions to clear long-standing promotion backlogs and stabilize the public school workforce.

DepEd said the twin events in Cavite—the classroom turnover and teacher oath-taking—highlight its strategy of pairing infrastructure investments with human resource reforms as the agency works to improve learning conditions, teacher welfare, and education outcomes across the public school system.