Days before President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his fifth State of the Nation Address, lawmakers warned that the Philippines still lacks more than 166,000 classrooms despite record education funding and the administration's pledge to address the shortage before the end of the President's term.

During Thursday's Senate Committee on Basic Education hearing on classroom congestion, chaired by Sen. Bam Aquino, education officials said the country's classroom shortage remains one of the biggest challenges facing the education sector.

Aquino said Congress allocated P67.9 billion this year for classroom construction, enough to fund more than 20,000 classrooms, but stressed that implementation, not funding, has become the government's biggest hurdle.

He said every day of delay means more students studying in overcrowded classrooms while teachers continue handling multiple shifts.

Aquino cited the case of Kasiglahan Village Elementary School and Kasiglahan Village National High School in Rodriguez, Rizal, where 18 of 103 classrooms have already been condemned despite being completed only in 2015.

According to school officials, the structures were declared unsafe within four years due to alleged substandard construction, forcing thousands of students to continue studying under congested conditions. Aquino said the contractor's structural warranty should be enforced if defects are confirmed.

The hearing comes almost exactly a year after Marcos used his 2025 SONA to describe the country's classroom shortage as "pitiful" and vowed to construct 40,000 classrooms through partnerships with the private sector before his term ends in 2028.

Aquino said the government can no longer afford delays.

"I'd also like to remind everyone, we're a few days from the SONA. Even in last year's SONA and in succeeding meetings with governors and mayors, education has always been presented as a priority of the government," he said.

Department of Education officials reported that classroom construction projects have already been identified for all provinces, 87 percent of cities and 75 percent of municipalities under various implementation modes involving local governments, the Department of Public Works and Highways and other programs.

DepEd said P49.8 billion of the P67.9-billion classroom budget has already been allocated, while requests for the remaining P18.1 billion are being prepared. The department said delays earlier this year were largely caused by the validation of school sites and land ownership documents, a process it said has now been completed.

Aquino, however, questioned the pace of implementation, noting that many local government units still do not know whether they will receive classroom projects this year despite the budget having been approved in December 2025.

He directed DepEd to publicly release the master list of beneficiary local governments, saying transparency would allow local officials to plan their own education spending and avoid duplicating projects.