Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian on Monday said non-poor students were benefiting from the Department of Education's voucher program for junior and senior high school. Join ANC PRESTIGE to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvi6hEzLM-Z_unKPSuuzKvg/join For more ANC Interviews, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm34qRgqWBU4AT2G3LWF27_RErcz0GVd9 For more Business Outlook videos, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm34qRgqWBU6TBYVPvgHTQWI2lYLCwbTM For more ANC Highlights videos, click the link below: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm34qRgqWBU4cKXctfaRZsLEHahqOc9dQ Subscribe to the ANC YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/user/ANCalerts Visit our website at https://news.abs-cbn.com/anc Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ancalerts Twitter: https://twitter.com/ancalerts #ANCAlerts #LatestNews #ANC

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We're talking about what they've discovered in the Senate hearings,

over 19,000 alleged GO students receiving support or subsidy from the government through the voucher program.

So I asked Senator, number one, is you wanted to ensure they were going to poor students,

but isn't that an extra layer of difficulty considering like in UP before,

for you to be subsidized by UP, now it's absolutely free.

Pero nung panahon namin, somebody from UP will actually go to your house,

check where you live, check how many electric fans you have if you have a car,

they'll check the financial standing of your family.

But with these, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of students receiving this support.

Is that still possible?

You're correct, Karen. It's going to be an administrative,

challenge to check almost 27 million students in our school system.

23 in our public school system, about 4 million in our private school system.

It's close to impossible.

And that's where technology comes in.

And that's why it's really imperative to roll out the national ID

because with that national ID, you can actually create a database within DepEd

that will...

...record the family income of that particular student.

It's going to be challenging, but because our, the philosophy of targeting poor students,

Karen, is because we have very finite resources.

For example, I'll give an example.

For classroom itself, we will need approximately 300 to 400 billion pesos

just to fulfill all the backlog.

So resources are finite.

So it's important that we make sure that resources are going into

students who are in need of assistance and who are deserving,

meaning they are academically performing well.

So we just need to make sure that we are targeting the right constituent

or the right student who deserves the subsidies.

Okay. Now, the PAYAC data also revealed that there's at least 239 million pesos

to be refunded.

So ang tanong ko, if, let's say, the government has released the money

to a private school, the school is bound to spend the money.

I mean, assumed walang abuse, but they're bound to spend it on programs

or other things, right?

Kasi nandun na rin ang pondo.

Hindi pa napakahirap nito because to expect a school to still refund,

let's say, 10 million, 12 million, as it is, a lot of them, aren't refunded.

Yeah.

As it is, a lot of them aren't refunded.

Yeah. As it is, a lot of them aren't refunded.

They're not even earning as much.

Yeah. You're absolutely correct.

That's the whole point of giving the money in advance,

to help them with their cash flow.

So meaning, they have to spend it or they need to spend it

in order for the schools to function and to operate properly.

But because of that system, there are abuses that are happening.

And those abuses stem now from records not being submitted

or records that are fraudulent.

And these are the things that we need to improve on.

How do we improve the validation process without hampering the cash flow

and the operations of the school?

We have to balance that because not all schools naman are looking to defraud the government.

In fact, majority of the schools are very happy and willing to work with the government.

But we also need to balance that process because—

Admittedly, some schools are trying to defraud government.

I'm curious, Senator, when does the government give the school the cash?

I mean, in terms of, is it June or is it two months before school opens?

What's the schedule?

As soon as the school submits the list of students,

the government automatically pays the school.

So meaning, in the first two to three months of that time period,

when the school opens, that's when the school gets their payment.

And then government validates the list one by one.

I'm not very sure at this point whether they validate it physically,

meaning they go to the school.

Yeah, it would be so—

Or they do random validation.

I mean, common sense, right?

You can just send one person one day by surprise

and then just call out the students that particular day.

Yeah, I'm not very sure if that happens.

Because we're talking about thousands of students.

But what I'm very sure is, they go there and they ask for records.

And then the records will also have accompanying prerequisites.

Some of the records will not have the requisites.

Some of the records will be in jambos.

So in that case that I mentioned, they gave the list.

But when they went there, there's no records to validate or to—

There's no prerequisites that is attached to the list.

So it became a questionable list.

So what happens moving forward?

I mean, there are two things here.

Number one, if it is true that if the school, let's say, isn't abusing the system,

technically speaking, the request for funding should be increasing every year.

Technically.

Yes.

Because we'll have more students every year.

Right?

Yes.

So it shouldn't be the same amount technically.

Yes.

But at current, it is increasing over the years.

Like I said earlier, it's now, for this school year,

the subsidies being given to private schools amount to 40 billion pesos.

During the start of this program, it's less than 20 billion pesos.

So it has doubled over the last five years.

And the intention of that, it's a good program.

It's a good program because—

Instead of building buildings for congested public schools,

you get culture, and then you put the students to private schools.

And that's where, in simple terms, that's the beauty of this program.

So you lessen on capex, but you increased on subsidies

so that schools will be channeled to private schools.

But then again—

Which agency is mandated to check on the students?

It's a—

There's a organization called PAYA,

which is composed of different private schools and as chair.

And they're supposed to be the filter of all of the students.

Yes.

And that pays the private schools.

So what—is it right to say that, I mean,

are you satisfied with the system PAYA has done?

Well, the whole process includes PAYA and DEPED needs to be changed and reformed.

Because admittedly,

there are school students happening and there are non-poor students being paid.

In fact, the non-poor students that are getting subsidies,

when we calculated it, it's about 14 billion a year.

So in other words, we don't even know if the students are even in the middle class.

But because there's no income classification,

14 billion a year,

14 billion is being channeled to non-poor students.

And that's—for me, that's not the intention of the program.

The intention of the program is to target poor but deserving students.

And for me, that's a big leakage that we need to change

or else resources are not being allocated efficiently.

Okay.

So just one last question on this one.

What do you plan to do moving forward?

I mean, now that they've discovered that there are—

19,000 students unaccounted for

that have received subsidies from the voucher program.

There are two tracks that we are taking.

Number one is to change the process through a department order.

And DEPED admits that the department order needs to be reformed.

And they promise that that's an ongoing process right now.

And then number two, we will be holding—

the institutions to account, both the private schools,

both PEAC and DEPED also,

because they're the ones that completes the entire process.

And we need to make sure that the 20,000,

over 20,000 students that are flagged as GO students are validated.

I hope I'm wrong.

I hope those students exist.

I hope it's just purely administrative errors.

But we will look deeper into this and get more—

facts and if they are, for example, proven that these are GO students,

then we have to hold people to account.

Because for the record, the budget for the voucher system for 2024 has been allotted, no?

Already, tapos na yun eh.

It's released yun, right?

Yes.

So kung baga, ang kailangan na lang is this particular school term.

What is the school schedule when it comes to high school and ano?

And grade school?

Because I know there's a debate right now on when to start it.

Yeah.

Right now, it's slowly moving to the original April, May, summer.

But we're still looking at July, August, a school opening.

So is there enough time to change, at least commonsensically lang, the system to check?

Yes, there is.

No, definitely.

And that's why I commend DEPED for admitting that

we need to re-evaluate.

We need to reform the system, and there's also loopholes in the system.

And that's what's echoed during the hearing.

And we will continue the hearing until we get the appropriate department orders in place.

And also, give us a report.

Because they're now doing an audit on those 19,000, 20,000 GO students.

So we will also look into that and get a report on that.

Okay.

My last question on education.

We'll talk about maybe other issues at another interview.

But right now,

honestly,

is there a lot of goodness in that that we can work with that we can really

help to make sure that the education environment is well-guarded and

that we have freedom to ask.

We have time determine to give.

Thank you for the interview.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.