Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda at Kapihan sa Manila Bay last July. (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO)
MANILA, Philippines — The House Committee on Basic Education and Culture suspended on Monday its deliberation of proposals to expand the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (Gastpe) Program.
The committee was concerned about revelations made by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda that the program had ghost beneficiaries — nonexistent teachers and students and unqualified schools.
Salceda pointed out that no checking was done by the Commission on Audit (COA) on the portion of the funds being transferred to the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC) for management,
“I hate to make this statement […] but there are abundant reports, because of the lack of COA [auditing], of ghost beneficiaries,” Salceda said.
The Gastpe Program, created by Republic Act No. 8545, gives various forms of aid to students, teachers, and schools such as the following:
- tuition supplements for students in private high schools, colleges, and universities
- textbook assistance fund for high school students
- the Educational Service Contracting (ESC) Scheme
- the voucher system for the Private Education Student Financial Assistance Program (PESFA)
- scholarship grants to students graduating as valedictorians and salutatorians
- education loan fund
“The Gastpe Program is booked by the DepEd [Department of Education] in its accounts as an expense to the PEAC, isn’t it? But the COA has already cited — we can cite all the reports — concerns about this because there is no outright liquidation, in contravention to the procurement process under Republic Act No. 9184. So how are you remediating this?” Salceda said.
He noted that, even without the PEAC’s relation to DepEd, it should be auditable for being a government-created advisory board.
Education Assistant Secretary Francis Cesar Bringas agreed with Salceda, saying that PEAC-managed funds should indeed be checked by COA.
Bringas was asked if PEAC had done something illegal. He asked that DepEd be allowed to defer its answer.
“If PEAC is a government agency, then in itself, not just your DepEd relations, PEAC itself is ‘COA-ble.’ Is that the position of DepEd? And therefore [it is] subject to procurement laws?” Salceda asked.
“Yes, Mr. Chair, it was contained in an audit observation memo […] that is why we are currently reviewing our memorandum of agreement with the PEAC because of this [audit observation memorandum] and we are responding to the memo given by the [COA],” Bringas replied.
“Since they are managing government funds, Mr. Chair, our position is they should be (auditable) […] (in terms of legality) we’ll have to review that. We want to defer our answer, Mr. Chair.”
According to Bringas, DepEd has transferred P52 billion to PEAC for the implementation of the Gastpe Program for the academic year 2023-2024, and the second semester of academic year 2022-2023. This also includes the P100 million management fee allotted to PEAC.
No representative from PEAC was present during the hearing, which was led by Pasig City Rep. Roman Romulo, the committee chair.
However, several of the resource persons said that incentives were given to schools and students who would transfer from public schools to private educational institutions to help them cope with higher expenses. The incentives are given as such movements free up spaces in overcrowded public schools.
Teachers also receive a yearly allowance as a result.
However, there are claims that records of students shifting to private schools are altered to make it appear that a lot of schools and students are getting incentives.
Due to the issues raised and the documents requested by the lawmakers, such as Salceda and ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro, Romulo moved to suspend deliberations on the substitute bill to House Bills No. 928, 1723, 5589, 1585 & 7666 — all of which call for the expansion of the Gastpe Program.
If the consolidated bill becomes law, kindergarten students would now be included in the list of beneficiaries and the forms of assistance would be increased.