Bicam OKs nearly P1 trillion education budget

MANILA, Philippines — On the first day of the bicameral conference committee hearings yesterday on the 2026 national budget – livestreamed for the first time – the Senate and House contingents approved a nearly P1-trillion allocation for the Department of Education and its attached agencies, with significant amounts earmarked for classroom construction, textbooks and feeding programs.

Under the bicameral version of the 2026 budget, DepEd’s allocation rose to P961.3 billion from the P874.5 billion originally proposed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP), an increase of P86.8 billion.

Lawmakers have earmarked P57.3 billion for the Basic Education Facilities Program, which covers the construction of classrooms and other school infrastructure.

House appropriations chair Rep. Mikaela Suansing said that as a result of the “significant” funding for classroom construction, the government would be able to build 40,000 classrooms by next year or way ahead of the administration’s 2028 target.

“A little more and we’ll be able to reach the target supposedly for 2028,” Suansing said during the bicameral conference committee hearing.

“The budget for FY 2026 will contain the highest education budget in history. With the P56.6 billion added by the House of Representatives, the total budget for the education sector will be P1.28 trillion – which translates to 4.1 percent of GDP,” Suansing said in her opening statement.

“This is the first time ever, in history, that we will breach the four percent international benchmark. With the P35.1 billion added by the House, the budget for the Basic Education Facilities Program will increase to P63.2 billion,” she added.

Suansing said the amount translates to around 25,200 new and rehabilitated classrooms in 2026, or 63 percent of the 40,000 classrooms envisioned by President Marcos to be built and rehabilitated by 2028.

She also said that with higher budget for education, the government would be able to fully fund the implementation of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education (UAQTE), which was passed into law in 2017.

She noted that the P255 billion removed from flood control projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has been reallocated to education, health and agriculture.

“Specifically, P201.1 billion out of the P255 billion (or 79 percent) went to the following: P56.6B towards education, P90.7 billion towards health and P53.7 billion towards agriculture,” Suansing said.

Funding for textbooks and other learning materials also increased, with the allocation for textbooks rising to P19.5 billion from P11.1 billion in the NEP, or an increase of P8.3 billion.

The school-based feeding program saw one of the largest hikes, with its budget more than doubling from P11.7 billion to P25.7 billion, or a P13.9-billion increase.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan said that instead of the original 120 days worth of feeding program in schools, DepEd would now be able to stretch it to 200 days.

Suansing said all major DepEd programs received higher allocations compared with the figures in the NEP.

No show at bicam

Several senators – including Sen. Ronald dela Rosa – were a no-show on the opening day of the bicameral deliberations on the proposed P6.793-trillion national budget.

Dela Rosa, as vice chairman of the Senate finance subcommittee for defense, should automatically be part of the Senate contingent to the bicameral conference committee.

A day before the bicameral proceedings began, Senate committee on finance chairman Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian had expressed hope of seeing Dela Rosa attend the budget deliberations.

Dela Rosa has not been reporting for work since reports on the supposed issuance by the ICC of an arrest warrant against him surfaced. The Senate leadership has yet to get formal communication from Dela Rosa regarding his absence.

Aside from Dela Rosa, Senators Pia Cayetano, JV Ejercito and Camille Villar were also absent as of 5 p.m. yesterday.

The bicameral conference committee meetings are being livestreamed in full for the first time, giving the public an unprecedented view of how lawmakers reconcile differences between the Senate and House versions of the spending measure.

Present among the Senate contingent aside from Gatchalian were Senators Loren Legarda, Francis Pangilinan and Erwin Tulfo from the majority bloc, as well as Senators Bong Go and Imee Marcos from the minority bloc.

Speaking during the proceedings, Marcos questioned why the budget for the DPWH was not scheduled for discussion yesterday, considering that the department was at the center of a raging controversy over funds misuse.

She said discussions on public works should have been prioritized at the outset of bicam deliberations.

In response, Gatchalian said the DPWH budget was scheduled to be taken up the following day, along with unprogrammed funds. But Marcos said she found it odd that unprogrammed funds were scheduled for discussion on the opening day of the bicameral committee hearings, and not the DPWH budget. — Jose Rodel Clapano, Helen Flores