Vice President and former DepEd Sec. Sara Duterte —Inquirer photo/Richard A. Reyes
MANILA, Philippines — The chair of the House committee on appropriations on Tuesday urged the incoming education secretary, Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, to review the Department of Education’s (DepEd) proposed budget for 2025, which was prepared under the agency’s outgoing chief, Vice President Sara Duterte.
In a statement, Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, chair of the House committee on appropriations, urged Angara to “scrutinize the prepared 2025 DepEd budget and make sure that budget directly solves the quality crisis in our country’s public K to 12 schools.”
READ: Education linked to national security, VP says of DepEd budget
“We look forward to meeting the new secretary on the State of the Nation Address on July 22 and during the budget hearings,” Co added. “The sooner you take hold of the DepEd reins, the better.”
Angara’s appointment coincides with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s signing of the P6.352-trillion proposed budget for next year, where social services like education, health and antipoverty programs are again expected to take the bulk of the allocations.
READ: Marcos OKs P6.352 trillion National Expenditure Program for 2025
Last year, DepEd was allocated the highest budget of P924 billion‚ of which P150 million was initially set aside as “confidential funds.” It was later scrapped during House deliberations after Duterte failed to defend its use.
Improve ‘Matatag’
Meanwhile, other lawmakers seeking education reforms urged Angara to prioritize improvements in the students’ performance and teachers’ demand for better working conditions.
ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro and Pasig Rep. Roman Romulo, who chairs the House committee on basic education, said they expected Angara’s experience as part of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) to guide him in his new position.
Romulo, a cochair of Edcom 2, a body tasked to assessing the education sector in view of its dismal world ranking, said Angara must focus on improving the implementation of the Matatag curriculum to improve students’ skills in reading, math and science.
The Matatag curriculum was introduced in 2023 under Duterte to improve performance in the three core subjects.
“However, as we saw last year, the implementation leaves much to be desired as the curriculum was piloted in only 35 DepEd schools, when we have about 38,000 elementary schools,” Romulo said. “So there really needs to be a more aggressive approach.”
‘Improved choice’
Castro called Angara an “improved choice’’ for the new education chief, but said he must “hit the ground running and immediately address the education crisis in our country as well as the long-standing demands of teachers and education support personnel.”
For starters, Angara should “overhaul” the K-12 program and launch a comprehensive review of its implementation since 2012, she said.
“We in ACT Teachers Partylist are ready to work with the new DepEd leadership for the benefit of our learners, teachers, and the entire education sector,” Castro said.
Speaker Martin Romualdez also congratulated Angara, saying the chamber is “eager to collaborate with him’’ and confident “we will make significant strides in uplifting our education system under your leadership.”
Negros Occidental Rep. Jose Francisco Benitez, another Edcom 2 commissioner, said Angara “intimately knows the ins and outs of our education system and understands it from a finance and management perspective.