The low utilization rate, delayed procurement, and omissions committed by the Department of Education (DepEd) in 2023 contributed significantly to the whopping P12-billion reduction in its budget for next year, administration lawmakers said Monday.

Under the approved bicameral report on the P6.352-trillion expenditure for fiscal year 2025, the DepEd’s budget saw a nearly P12-billion cut, P10 billion of which was intended for the agency’s computerization program.

Initially, the DepEd was allotted P748.6 billion before this was trimmed to P737 billion by the bicam panel, sparking a public backlash for its potential unconstitutionality.

Zambales Rep. Jefferson Khonghun asserted that the education sector remains a top priority of the administration but it just so happened there were deficiencies observed in its budget utilization during Vice President Sara Duterte’s stint as DepEd secretary

This included the computerization program where a huge number of laptops went undelivered.

“We financed that during the time Vice President Sara Duterte was education secretary [but] what happened was many laptops are still in the warehouses and actually have not yet been delivered,” Khonghun told reporters.

“So, they need to explain first what are the programs, and how will they use the money given to them by our government. Because we could not just give them [money] without accounting for how they used the funds,” he said.

During the budget deliberations in September, the DepEd confirmed that there were 12,022 laptops for teaching and 7,558 laptops for non-teaching that had yet to be delivered by year-end 2023.

The delay in the delivery of the computers and laptops, which cost P9.17 billion, persisted despite the current student-to-computer ratio being 9:1 and the teacher-to-computer ratio being 30:1.

Meanwhile, Tingog Rep. Jude Acidre contended that the inefficiencies of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in timely delivering infrastructure projects could not be used as a ground not to grant the agency its much-needed allocation increase of P1.113 trillion.

“It’s not the delivery of computers that has delayed DPWH projects. It often has something to do with climate, natural disasters,” he said in the same briefing.

“We [have to] remember that the size of the infrastructure will always be the size of [our] economic growth,” Acidre added.

With the significant budget cut of the DepEd, Khonghun the agency must first improve its utilization rate before they implement any adjustments.

Based on the findings of the Commission on Audit that has yet to be made public, DepEd during Duterte’s tenure only disbursed P2.75 billion of P11.36 billion for its information and communication technology in 2023.

“During the past administration, DepEd was notorious for delayed procurements and its failure to uphold transparency and accountability,” Khonghun said.

“So, the Department of Education should really prove now that it has changed and that it has improved the spending of our government funds,” the lawmaker said.

Nevertheless, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has pledged to restore the budget slashed from the DepEd following a public uproar.

“We’re working on it to make sure that we will restore it. I do not want to line item veto anything because that just gets in the way. So we’re still talking about it and trying to find a way,” the President said.