Lost to corruption

It was very welcome news to learn that the World Bank (WB) has approved a $200 million loan "to improve the quality and equity of basic education in the Philippines" through funding support to the various programs of the Department of Education (DepEd). This WB loan facility will help address the declining quality and accessibility to Filipino children of elementary and secondary education over the next five years starting this year.

This is one kind of loan that deserves budgetary support, in terms of raising the peso counterpart funds to set into motion these programs and projects specifically being bankrolled by the WB. The loan has a repayment period of 20 years, with a grace period of eight years.

The WB noted with concern the declining competitive edge of the Philippines on its English-speaking human resource assets. The WB cited the Philippines has been acclaimed as one of the most highly educated countries for decades but it has lately fared very low in national and international tests of competencies in the subjects of Mathematics, Science, and the English language.

The single biggest component of this loan facility amounts to $96 million for the "Enhanced Quality and Equity through Standards, Assessment and Support." This simply refers to the DepEd program on the Revised Basic Education Curriculum (RBEC). This loan component will finance the development and implementation of DepEd’s national strategies to support learning in English and Filipino language, Mathematics and Science and computer literacy. This component will also provide complementary funds for the school building program to help schools meet minimum standards.

This brings to mind anew the perennial problem of classroom shortage in our public elementary and high schools. The classroom shortage in many of the public schools all over the country came to light again when classes opened earlier this month. Outgoing Senate president Franklin Drilon called me about two weeks ago when I mentioned in my previous column the school building program being undertaken through these years by the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. (FFCCCII). It turns out that Drilon has partnered with FFCCCII, using his annual "pork-barrel" allocations in the budget, in support of the construction of two-classroom school building projects in various parts of the country.

Drilon told me that the FFCCCII has been into these construction projects of two-room classroom school buildings since the 1960s even before he entered politics when the organization first started this kind of civic-charity activities. The FFCCCII has been doing these projects under its "Operation Barrio Schools" program that has built thousands of public schools, mostly in depressed and far-flung areas with a dearth of classrooms.

Taking note of the "cost-effective" projects done by the FFCCCII through private contractors, Drilon said he opted to channel his "pork-barrel" funds to the FFCCCII school building projects rather than these funds to be given to those undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Drilon entered into a memorandum of agreement with the FFCCCII in May 2002 to specifically allocate P100 million of his public works entitlement and dubbed it as the FFCCCII-Senate President Franklin Drilon School Building Project.

Under his partnership with the FFCCCII at that time, one classroom facility is built at a cost of P175,000, or P350,000 for a standard two-classroom. However, due to inflation and rising costs of construction materials, a two-classroom facility now costs P400,000 or P200,000 per classroom. Nonetheless, the costing of DPWH for the same kind of project is twice that amount to build a similar facility.

Measuring 7 x 14 square meters, the duplex-type school building is a concrete structure with steel beams and GI roof, complete with jalousie windows, blackboard and paint finish.

It is not difficult to figure out how the FFCCCII can construct school building at half the cost of what it takes with the DPWH. Being a non-profit organization, the FFCCCII does not have to go through bidding where the usual "kickbacks" from favored contractors with their "partners in crime" in the DPWH getting the commission. Moreover, the FFCCCII has an extensive network of members nationwide who are in the construction business and so they get lower priced cement and other construction materials.

After three years of operation, the Drilon-FFCCCII partnership has reportedly constructed a total of 1,200 classrooms all over the Philippines, with 200 classrooms more soon to rise using the Senator’s pork-barrel funds.

According to the DepEd, the classroom requirement for the school year 2006-2007 totaled 41,197, of which P2 billion was included in the 2006 national budget for the school building program. However, Congress has yet to pass into law the 2006 budget bill.

The Drilon-FFCCCII partnership is a good model for other lawmakers to replicate, for those bleeding hearts purportedly fighting against corruption and wastes in the use of scarce government resources, especially with government agencies like DepEd which receives so much fund assistance from local and foreign donors on top of official loans like those secured from WB and other international financial institutions.

Such cases of corruption came to the fore when the DepEd legal affairs lawyer filed yesterday graft and plunder charges before the Ombudsman against former Secretary Ricardo Gloria who headed DepEd from 1994 to 1998 in connection with the alleged anomalous use of some P57 million worth of the Fund Assistance for Private Education (FAPE). The FAPE was created during the administration of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos as a trustee of the Philippine government to manage the trust funds donated by the United States through grants to finance the schooling of public elementary and high school students deserving to be transferred to private institutions as a way to decongest public schools.

It is, however, puzzling how come it took only now that the DepEd discovered and now initiating legal action on this alleged anomaly after more than eight years. It is thus a cause of concern that this $200 million WB loan for DepEd might suffer the same fate of

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