DepEd chief washes hands off CPBD study

MANILA, Philippines - Education Secretary Jesli Lapus on Wednesday washes his hands off a report by the Commission on Audit (COA) that his department wasted millions of pesos from its 2007 budget. A radio report quoted Lapus as saying that it is just normal for the auditing body to release reports on how government agencies spend their budget yearly. Lapus added that his agency was able to answer properly all the questions raised by COA on how they spent their funds. Lapus was named to the DepEd post in 2007. He previously served in government as representative of Tarlac's third district. Earlier in the day, the Congressional Planning and Budget Department (CPBD) cited reports of COA showing that millions in the Education department's budget were wasted either through non-utilization, misallocation or purchase of inferior equipment. "Information and multi-media equipment packages amounting to no less than P667.95 million were neither utilized nor maximized for classroom instructions in 13 regions because they were either defective or distributed to schools which were not strictly selected in accordance with the approved criteria, resulting in the wasteful storage or utilization of the units," the CPBD report said. Acute classroom shortages in 2,929 schools were also left unaddressed because school building projects worth at least P597.796 million were spent instead on 1,329 school sites that had the least need for buildings and classrooms, the report stated. Likewise, 84,254 sets of tables and chairs and 150,748 armchairs costing P197 million were allocated to 2,777 elementary and 899 secondary schools that already had adequate seat provisions from 2004-2007 instead of giving them to 2,764 elementary and secondary schools with acute seat shortages. The CPDB further said the COA report disclosed that while the number of undistributed textbooks decreased from 2006 to 2007, a total of 1,275,056 copies of unused textbooks or manuals costing at least P57.3 million remained stored in school stockrooms or libraries in 2007. The COA report also showed that "unnecessary expenses and waste of time and effort by school personnel and parent-student beneficiaries" occurred due to school implementers' non-compliance with DepEd guidelines on the implementation of the Food for School program and violations of the existing rice supply contact of the National Food Authority, said the CPBD. The CPBD likewise noted that while participation in secondary schools increased from 57 percent to 58 percent from 2001 to 2006, elementary school participation declined from 90 percent to 83 percent. The overall achievement rate for school year 2006 to 2007 also remained low for both levels, with 60 percent for elementary and 47 percent for high school, the CPBD said. - Aie Balagtas See, GMANews.TV