00:50.1
Is that still possible?
00:51.5
You're correct, Karen. It's going to be an administrative,
00:55.2
challenge to check almost 27 million students in our school system.
01:01.8
23 in our public school system, about 4 million in our private school system.
01:08.2
It's close to impossible.
01:10.2
And that's where technology comes in.
01:12.5
And that's why it's really imperative to roll out the national ID
01:17.7
because with that national ID, you can actually create a database within DepEd
01:25.2
...record the family income of that particular student.
01:30.5
It's going to be challenging, but because our, the philosophy of targeting poor students,
01:36.0
Karen, is because we have very finite resources.
01:39.6
For example, I'll give an example.
01:42.1
For classroom itself, we will need approximately 300 to 400 billion pesos
01:47.4
just to fulfill all the backlog.
01:49.8
So resources are finite.
01:51.6
So it's important that we make sure that resources are going into
01:55.2
students who are in need of assistance and who are deserving,
02:00.8
meaning they are academically performing well.
02:04.3
So we just need to make sure that we are targeting the right constituent
02:09.0
or the right student who deserves the subsidies.
02:13.1
Okay. Now, the PAYAC data also revealed that there's at least 239 million pesos
02:25.2
So ang tanong ko, if, let's say, the government has released the money
02:30.6
to a private school, the school is bound to spend the money.
02:35.2
I mean, assumed walang abuse, but they're bound to spend it on programs
02:40.4
or other things, right?
02:41.9
Kasi nandun na rin ang pondo.
02:44.1
Hindi pa napakahirap nito because to expect a school to still refund,
02:51.0
let's say, 10 million, 12 million, as it is, a lot of them, aren't refunded.
02:53.8
As it is, a lot of them aren't refunded.
02:54.6
Yeah. As it is, a lot of them aren't refunded.
02:55.2
They're not even earning as much.
02:57.2
Yeah. You're absolutely correct.
02:58.8
That's the whole point of giving the money in advance,
03:01.1
to help them with their cash flow.
03:02.5
So meaning, they have to spend it or they need to spend it
03:06.7
in order for the schools to function and to operate properly.
03:11.1
But because of that system, there are abuses that are happening.
03:17.6
And those abuses stem now from records not being submitted
03:22.4
or records that are fraudulent.
03:24.4
And these are the things that we need to improve on.
03:27.4
How do we improve the validation process without hampering the cash flow
03:34.0
and the operations of the school?
03:35.9
We have to balance that because not all schools naman are looking to defraud the government.
03:41.3
In fact, majority of the schools are very happy and willing to work with the government.
03:47.3
But we also need to balance that process because—
03:54.2
Admittedly, some schools are trying to defraud government.
03:58.0
I'm curious, Senator, when does the government give the school the cash?
04:03.5
I mean, in terms of, is it June or is it two months before school opens?
04:09.1
What's the schedule?
04:10.5
As soon as the school submits the list of students,
04:15.1
the government automatically pays the school.
04:18.8
So meaning, in the first two to three months of that time period,
04:24.2
when the school opens, that's when the school gets their payment.
04:30.1
And then government validates the list one by one.
04:33.4
I'm not very sure at this point whether they validate it physically,
04:37.0
meaning they go to the school.
04:38.3
Yeah, it would be so—
04:40.5
Or they do random validation.
04:43.3
I mean, common sense, right?
04:44.6
You can just send one person one day by surprise
04:47.7
and then just call out the students that particular day.
04:51.1
Yeah, I'm not very sure if that happens.
04:54.2
Because we're talking about thousands of students.
04:56.8
But what I'm very sure is, they go there and they ask for records.
05:01.0
And then the records will also have accompanying prerequisites.
05:04.6
Some of the records will not have the requisites.
05:09.1
Some of the records will be in jambos.
05:12.4
So in that case that I mentioned, they gave the list.
05:18.1
But when they went there, there's no records to validate or to—
05:24.2
There's no prerequisites that is attached to the list.
05:28.4
So it became a questionable list.
05:31.8
So what happens moving forward?
05:34.2
I mean, there are two things here.
05:35.9
Number one, if it is true that if the school, let's say, isn't abusing the system,
05:45.1
technically speaking, the request for funding should be increasing every year.
05:52.6
Because we'll have more students every year.
05:55.1
So it shouldn't be the same amount technically.
05:58.8
But at current, it is increasing over the years.
06:03.8
Like I said earlier, it's now, for this school year,
06:08.3
the subsidies being given to private schools amount to 40 billion pesos.
06:12.4
During the start of this program, it's less than 20 billion pesos.
06:15.6
So it has doubled over the last five years.
06:19.8
And the intention of that, it's a good program.
06:23.0
It's a good program because—
06:24.2
Instead of building buildings for congested public schools,
06:28.9
you get culture, and then you put the students to private schools.
06:35.1
And that's where, in simple terms, that's the beauty of this program.
06:40.5
So you lessen on capex, but you increased on subsidies
06:45.3
so that schools will be channeled to private schools.
06:49.0
Which agency is mandated to check on the students?
06:54.2
There's a organization called PAYA,
06:58.0
which is composed of different private schools and as chair.
07:01.8
And they're supposed to be the filter of all of the students.
07:05.6
And that pays the private schools.
07:08.4
So what—is it right to say that, I mean,
07:12.2
are you satisfied with the system PAYA has done?
07:15.8
Well, the whole process includes PAYA and DEPED needs to be changed and reformed.
07:22.2
Because admittedly,
07:24.2
there are school students happening and there are non-poor students being paid.
07:31.7
In fact, the non-poor students that are getting subsidies,
07:36.0
when we calculated it, it's about 14 billion a year.
07:40.8
So in other words, we don't even know if the students are even in the middle class.
07:48.6
But because there's no income classification,
07:53.1
14 billion a year,
07:54.2
14 billion is being channeled to non-poor students.
07:57.3
And that's—for me, that's not the intention of the program.
08:02.2
The intention of the program is to target poor but deserving students.
08:06.1
And for me, that's a big leakage that we need to change
08:10.0
or else resources are not being allocated efficiently.
08:15.0
So just one last question on this one.
08:17.8
What do you plan to do moving forward?
08:20.1
I mean, now that they've discovered that there are—
08:24.2
19,000 students unaccounted for
08:27.8
that have received subsidies from the voucher program.
08:32.1
There are two tracks that we are taking.
08:34.5
Number one is to change the process through a department order.
08:39.3
And DEPED admits that the department order needs to be reformed.
08:45.2
And they promise that that's an ongoing process right now.
08:49.2
And then number two, we will be holding—
08:54.2
the institutions to account, both the private schools,
08:57.5
both PEAC and DEPED also,
09:01.0
because they're the ones that completes the entire process.
09:04.6
And we need to make sure that the 20,000,
09:07.8
over 20,000 students that are flagged as GO students are validated.
09:13.8
I hope I'm wrong.
09:14.5
I hope those students exist.
09:15.8
I hope it's just purely administrative errors.
09:19.5
But we will look deeper into this and get more—
09:24.2
facts and if they are, for example, proven that these are GO students,
09:28.7
then we have to hold people to account.
09:31.2
Because for the record, the budget for the voucher system for 2024 has been allotted, no?
09:39.5
Already, tapos na yun eh.
09:41.1
It's released yun, right?
09:43.6
So kung baga, ang kailangan na lang is this particular school term.
09:48.0
What is the school schedule when it comes to high school and ano?
09:54.2
And grade school?
09:55.6
Because I know there's a debate right now on when to start it.
09:59.3
Right now, it's slowly moving to the original April, May, summer.
10:05.8
But we're still looking at July, August, a school opening.
10:10.2
So is there enough time to change, at least commonsensically lang, the system to check?
10:18.3
And that's why I commend DEPED for admitting that
10:23.3
we need to re-evaluate.
10:24.2
We need to reform the system, and there's also loopholes in the system.
10:27.4
And that's what's echoed during the hearing.
10:29.7
And we will continue the hearing until we get the appropriate department orders in place.
10:37.0
And also, give us a report.
10:39.8
Because they're now doing an audit on those 19,000, 20,000 GO students.
10:44.1
So we will also look into that and get a report on that.
10:48.2
My last question on education.
10:50.0
We'll talk about maybe other issues at another interview.
10:56.2
is there a lot of goodness in that that we can work with that we can really
10:60.0
help to make sure that the education environment is well-guarded and
11:13.4
that we have freedom to ask.
11:14.2
We have time determine to give.
11:18.2
Thank you for the interview.
