At House, DepEd gets P22.5-B boost to P3.28-B classroom funds request
MANILA, Philippines — House lawmakers approved on Monday, September 22, a P22.5-billion increase in the Department of Education’s classroom construction budget for next year — almost seven times more than what the agency initially sought.
The House appropriations panel's subcommittee has also confirmed that DepEd is set to be granted the authority — through a new budget provision ironed out with Secretary Sonny Angara — to build new facilities without relying solely on the Department of Public Works and Highways.
The motion to raise the DepEd classroom budget in the 2026 National Expenditure Program — carried during a subcommittee hearing of the House appropriations panel — will nearly double its funds for new facilities in 2026 to some P50 billion from the original P28-billion allocation.
The approved increase is nearly seven times the P3.28 billion that DepEd originally asked lawmakers for during the budget deliberations.
"DepEd only requested P3.28 billion additional for the basic education facilities program. But we're giving them P22.5 billion," House Appropriations Committee chair Rep. Mikaela Suansing (Nueva Ecija, 1st District) said during the subcommittee's deliberations on budget amendments on Monday. "We have almost provided more than 6 times of your original request."
The motion to nearly double DepEd’s classroom funds cleared the room without objection, with Suansing joking that the back-and-forth over the top-up felt like an “auction” as lawmakers repeatedly raised the amount beyond the original request.
Four modes of construction
The House version of the 2026 budget introduces a special provision that allows DepEd to implement school building projects directly, Suansing confirmed, ending the agency's exclusive reliance on the DPWH.
Lawmakers — and Angara himself, who was Senate finance panel chairperson before becoming DepEd secretary last year — believe this setup has contributed to the sluggish pace of school building projects, primarily due to red tape and coordination issues between DepEd and DPWH.
But under the new provision, DepEd can build new classrooms directly through its own engineers, or in partnership with the DPWH, local government units (LGUs) or public-private partnerships.
"There is a special provision in the DepEd budget in 2026 where there would be four modes that can be utilized to implement the classroom," Suansing said. "So hopefully by increasing the modes to include LGUs and PPPs, I hope the implementation of the classroom build-outs will be faster."
To ensure quality, the House appropriations chairperson noted that DepEd has engineers in its Schools Division Offices who should be mobilized to inspect and supervise projects, even if construction is carried out by LGUs or private partners.
Rep. Albert Garcia (Nueva Ecija, 1st District), House appropriations committee senior vice chairperson, initially proposed a P10-billion increase, which Rep. Jose Alvarez (Palawan, 2nd district), committee vice chairperson, raised to P20 billion.
Suansing then suggested P21.5 billion to include furniture, with the final amount reaching P22.5 billion after Alvarez revised his motion.
Rep. Brian Poe (FPJ Panday Bayanihan party-list) estimated that if the budget "carries at P48.4 billion," this could fund some 19,360 classrooms at P2.5 million each. This is about 12% of the total shortage, which DepEd estimates to be around 165,000.
This would be the "largest bump we've ever seen for DepEd if we can carry this until the end," Poe said.
Backlog by the numbers
DeoEd's classroom shortage has been one of the most visible problems in public education that has crossed different administrations.
A growing school population every year has outpaced the government's ability to build enough new classrooms, forcing several public schools into double or even triple shifts due to overcrowding.
Suansing estimated the total funding requirement at more than P100 billion to P150 billion to fully wipe out the current 165,000 backlog for classrooms.
"Little by little, we will work toward that," Suansing said.
A recent nationwide audit of its classroom construction projects has led DepEd to flag over 1,000 classrooms that were turned over by the DPWH despite being unfinished and unusable.
The audit was prompted by mounting corruption allegations in DPWH's flood control projects. But unlike typical "ghost projects" where nothing is built, Angara said these classrooms were partially constructed but turned over despite not being finished or lacking aspects like paint and electricity.
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