Ex-lawmaker asks Duterte: What results in DepEd are you talking about?

Former Rep. France Castro —PHOTO FROM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MANILA, Philippines — Former ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro on Thursday questioned Vice President Sara Duterte’s claim of her “delivering results” during her stint as education secretary, as she also stressed that the latter’s leadership only delivered “controversies, anomalies, and a worsening crisis” in the education system.

Castro was one of Duterte’s fiercest critics in the previous 19th Congress and among the lawmakers who questioned the vice president’s expenditure of the P612.5 million in confidential funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

In response to Duterte’s interview in The Hague on Wednesday (Netherlands time), where she said that President Marcos even wanted her to reconsider her resignation from the Department of Education and even delivered results, Castro said Duterte’s leadership in the agency was defined by “massive corruption and mismanagement.”

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Duterte has also criticized the country’s education system, pointing out that the Philippines was lagging behind other nations in modernizing education.

“Where are the results you’re talking about? All we saw were controversies, anomalies, and a worsening crisis in our education sector under your watch,” Castro said in a statement, addressed to Duterte.

For Castro, she recalled the time when the House of Representatives was looking into how Duterte spent her secret funds and how it was spent for surveillance and safehouses “that have nothing to do with education.”

“Instead of providing clear documentation, she presented questionable receipts, cried political persecution, threw tantrums during House hearings and even threatened the president on a livestream. This is not what a sane leader looks like,” Castro said.

Castro also brought up when Duterte was seeking P10 million for the publication of her children’s book “Isang Kaibigan (A friend)” when the OVP was facing the Senate for its budget deliberations.

She also cited the Commission on Audit’s findings flagging DepEd over the P12.3 billion unresolved transactions of the agency under Duterte’s stint, the low utilization rate for textbook production based on the findings by the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department, and even the persistent backlog on classrooms nationwide.

“These are not the marks of a department delivering results. These are marks of historic corruption and incompetence,” Castro said.

“If you indeed delivered results, show it,” she added. “But the truth is, all you left in DepEd were scandals and anomalies.” /mr