Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan is pushing for tax incentives and the institutionalization of public-private partnerships (PPPs) to accelerate classroom construction nationwide.

This move, he said, would slash the country’s massive 165,000-classroom backlog and avoid waiting more than half a century to address the gap.

Under his proposed legislation—the Classroom Building Acceleration Program Act—Pangilinan seeks to embed private sector participation and local government counterpart funding into law, making it less vulnerable to shifts in political leadership and policy reversals.

“We should protect effective classroom-building programs from politics, partisanship, and personal agendas,” Pangilinan said in a statement on Wednesday.

“If a program works, it should continue,” he added.

Pangilinan questioned the discontinuation of a successful Aquino-era scheme in which the national government and local government units (LGUs) shared the cost of building classrooms 50-50, complemented by PPPs.

The senator challenged the Departments of Education (DepEd) and Public Works and Highways (DPWH) on the abrupt policy change.

“If the matching by the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) and the LGU of 50-50 plus the PPP as a policy worked, why did DepEd and DPWH change it? Why was it changed? Why was it not continued?” Pangilinan asked during the joint hearing of the Senate’s basic education, local government, and finance committees.

Senator Win Gatchalian, who served as mayor of Valenzuela City during the Aquino administration, backed Pangilinan’s claims, saying his city benefited directly from the cost-sharing approach.

“In my personal experience, effective siya. I remembered we were given 50% of the funding from DepEd, and then 50% will come from the local government,” Gatchalian recalled. “Effective in a sense because sabay-sabay kami nagpapatayo ng buildings… in a matter of one year, sabay-sabay kami natatapos.”

DepEd Undersecretary Wilfredo Cabral agreed, calling the counterparting scheme a “good practice” that was simply not adopted by the succeeding administration.

“The counterparting agreement really was a good practice before, but in the change of administration, this was not considered,” he said.

According to a 2016 report by then-Education Secretary Armin Luistro, the Aquino administration, through counterparting and PPPs, built 185,000 classrooms from 2010 to 2016—effectively wiping out the 66,000-classroom backlog at the time.

Pangilinan also raised concerns about the ballooning cost of classrooms under the current DepEd-DPWH model, which ranges from P2.5 million to P3.8 million per classroom, compared to P1.5 million to P2 million through LGU-private sector partnerships.

“If we restore counterparting and PPPs, we can deliver more classrooms for the same budget—and do it much faster,” he stressed.

The senator’s proposed bill aims not just to revive, but legally entrench these mechanisms as core strategies for classroom construction.