Vice President Sara Duterte leads DepEd ‘Brigada Eskwela’ launch in Cavite

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte yesterday led the kick-off ceremony for this year’s Brigada Eskwela in Imus, Cavite, as she admitted that the Department of Education (DepEd) is facing gargantuan challenges with the resumption of face-to-face classes and would need some P18 billion in funds to address the problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and other natural calamities to the education sector.

Speaking before DepEd employees, teachers, local leaders, parents and representatives of civil organizations, Duterte cited the continuing threats of the COVID pandemic, natural calamities such as flooding, typhoons and earthquakes, and the entry of monkeypox in the country as among the challenges that the agency is facing as school reopens later this month.

“We all know these problems and the other problems and challenges that the Department of Education and its partners are facing year in and year out... We are in a quicksand. While we have yet to address the destruction of a previous calamity, another calamity has hit us,” the Vice President said in English and Filipino.

“And we need more than P18 billion, excluding the P1.4 billion of damage from the Abra earthquake to get ourselves out of the quicksand of this year and last year. It does not include the things or the repairs that we have to do from 2016,” she added.

Citing the assessment of the DepEd’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Service (DRRMS), Duterte said more than 9,000 schools in Northern Luzon have been affected by the magnitude 7.3 earthquake that hit the region last Wednesday.

She added that based on the DRRMS’ assessment, the government would need P1.4 billion for the repair of 451 classrooms destroyed by the earthquake and the other 706 classrooms that sustained damage.

The Vice President, however, stressed that she is confident that the DepEd can overcome the challenges and mount a successful return of face-to-face classes.

“I am confident, and I am optimistic that Department of Education will overcome – and we will overcome with the support of our national government and the administration of President Bongbong Marcos,” she said.

She added that the previous DepEd leadership, under the administration of her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, has left the agency with a clear roadmap, the “Basic Education Development Plan 2030,” to ensure that basic education targets would be met.

“What is important is that we have the determination to succeed in our mission. We are all set to open our schools all over the country 22 days from now,” the Vice President said.

“With the national government supporting the DepEd, with the Basic Education Development Plan 2030 serving as our guide, the success of the department’s plans and programs shall now be completed by our undying love for the profession of teaching Filipino children, our children, the future of our nation,” she added.

“That we are gathering here today to pilot Brigada Eskwela all over the country – with your presence here – is truly inspiring, and I hope that the energy that you are showing today will create waves and waves of the same energy and will reach even the farthest public school in the Philippines,” she said.

‘Pricey’ laptops

Meanwhile, the Commission on Audit (COA) has admonished the DepEd over its procurement of “pricey” laptops totaling P2.4 billion, through the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) last year.

In its 2021 annual audit report, the COA has noted several “deficiencies” in the DepEd’s utilization of P2.451 billion in COVID-19 response fund allocated under Republic Act 11494 or the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act (Bayanihan 2), the bulk of which or P2.4 billion was used for the procurement of 39,583 units of entry-level type laptops for distribution to public school teachers nationwide.

COA said the items, procured by the DepEd Central Office (CO), were “pricey” for an entry-level type of laptop, thus, resulting in “significant decrease in the number of units provided to intended users”.

“Apparently, the supposed number of laptops to be procured of 68,500 units was significantly reduced to 39,583 units which was mainly due to the huge increase of estimated cost from P35,046.50 (per unit), based on DepEd’s submitted and approved Agency Procurement Request (APR), to P58,300.00 (per unit) anchored on the DBM-PS’ recommendation, which was duly accepted by the DepEd,” the audit body said.

“The huge difference of P23,253.50 per unit price resulted in significant decrease by 28,917 laptop computers, purportedly for distribution to intended recipient-teachers, which could have helped them in performing their tasks in the blended learning set-up. Consequently, an estimated 28,917 teachers were deprived of the possible benefits from the supposed provision of these laptops,” it added. – Rainier Allan Ronda