MANILA, Philippines — With P56.6 billion realigned to the education sector, the House-approved P1.28 trillion education budget for 2026 now accounts for 4.1% of the country’s gross domestic product, meeting international standards for the first time.
At a press briefing on Monday, October 20, Rep. Mikaela Suansing (Nueva Ecija, 1st District), chair of the House appropriations committee, gave an overview of the major changes in the proposed 2026 national budget. One of those includes the record-breaking education budget.
“For the first time in history, we were able to breach the 4% international benchmark,” she said.
Although the executive branch had proposed a P1.224-trillion allocation for education, the House chose to increase the budget further while avoiding any cuts, unlike in 2025 when some allocations were trimmed.
Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, however, earlier said that the government cannot meet all international benchmarks for every sector due to “limited fiscal space,” which resulted in the initial education budget covering only 3.5% of the GDP.
Over the past decade, UNESCO has recommended that member states allocate 4% to 6% of their GDP — or 15% to 20% of public spending — to the education sector.
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Most funds taken from flood control
What Congress did to augment the education budget was realign a portion of the P255.5 billion removed from the P881.3 billion proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to education-related programs.
In one of its hearings, the appropriations panel approved the reallocation of P22.5 billion from cut flood control funds to the Department of Education (DepEd) for constructing and rehabilitating classrooms and facilities.
The House’s final budget raised the total reallocated amount to P35.1 billion, bringing the budget for basic education facilities (BEF) to P63.2 billion — enough to create and repair around 25,200 classrooms.
An additional P13.8 billion was also approved to boost the scholarship fund to around P52 billion, supporting the education of 2.49 million learners. This partially covers the following:
- Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act (UAQTE)
- Tertiary Education Subsidy
- Tulong Dunong Program
- Special Training for Employment Program
- Training for Work Scholarship Program
These are programs under the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Suansing said the increase was taken from the flood control cut.
The realignment comes amid scrutiny of the DPWH, which has been at the center of the flood control corruption scandal allegedly involving lawmakers.
Congress has been attempting to restore public trust by slashing the agency’s budget and eliminating duplicate or redundant infrastructure projects that allegedly facilitated kickback schemes.
Where else did education get funds?
Apart from the flood control funds, the P56.6 billion increase in the education budget also taps unused balances from the Higher Education Development Fund (HEDF) and congressional reallocations to pay for the P12.307 billion worth of deficiencies accumulated from 2022 to 2025 for free higher education.
A total of P7.82 billion will be taken from HEDF through a special provision in the budget bill, while P4.486 billion from the UAQTE will be specifically set aside to cover the gaps.
“This is the first year since UAQTE was passed in 2017 that it will be fully funded. Medyo nakakagulat po ‘yun, pero ‘yun po ‘yung realidad (It’s quite a shock, but that’s reality),” Suansing said, adding that the lower chamber has also put in place a mechanism to avoid such deficiencies.
She explained that Congress is working to streamline the system between CHED, state universities and colleges, and the DBM, particularly in addressing discrepancies in enrollment estimates and actual figures, which are used to determine the free college tuition budget.
With the House-approved P1.28-trillion education budget, the sector now represents nearly one-fifth of the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026. It is now only a matter of whether the Senate will approve of the same or even raise it.