DISCLOSURES by the Department of Education (DepEd) under the Executive Summary of its 2023 audit report showed more than 30,000 teachers and teaching-related personnel left the agency between 2022 and 2023, the only full year of Vice President Sara Duterte as Education secretary.
Data from the DepEd showed there were 879,793 teachers as of yearend 2022 but the number dropped to 858,318 by December 31, 2023 or a decrease of 21,475.
On the other hand, the number of teaching-related personnel also declined year on year from 63,610 to 54,827 or a difference of 8,783. Included under this classification were education program supervisors, Principal I, Head Teacher I, and guidance counselors.
Even the number of non-teaching personnel also took a nosedive from 72,663 to 64,458 over the same period or a drop of 8,205.
In its Fourth Quarter Physical Report of Operation, the DepEd set a hiring target of 9,659 new teachers from its 2023 budget but only 5,591 available plantilla posts were filled up.
Out of its spillover funding from 2020 to 2022, the agency also opened an additional 3,420 posts, of which 2,708 were filled.
These new hires were already included in the yearend 2023 disclosure of the agency.
“The ongoing hiring process has been faced with certain factors that are beyond control, leading to underperformance in some areas. Despite our efforts to address these issues, the uncontrollable nature of these factors has contributed to the delay in the hiring process,” the DepEd said.
In all, the total personnel complement of the DepEd shrunk from 1,016,066 in 2022 to 977,603 in 2023.
However, for the same period, the agency’s Personnel Services (PS) expenses increased by P51.28 billion from P522.4 billion (2022) to P573.68 billion (2023).
Under PS, salaries and wages climbed to P374.55 billion from P345.08 billion the year before.
“Other Compensation,” which included various allowances and bonuses of DepEd officials and employees, went up to P123.02 billion compared to P111.33 billion the previous year.
Personnel Benefits Contributions showed an uptick from P41.847 billion to P45.308 billion while “Other Personnel Benefits’ increased to P20.665 billion from P15.036 billion.
WHO’S ACCOUNTABLE?
Administration lawmakers said those responsible for the irregularities reported by the Commission on Audit (COA) in the implementation of the P5.7 billion school-based feeding program of the DepEd last year under Vice President Sara Duterte should be made to account for criminal negligence.
Members of the Young Guns bloc said it was “criminal negligence” to allow the feeding of spoiled milk and nutribuns to schoolchildren when Duterte was still the education secretary.
“This may be the crime committed by education officials who permitted the delivery of expired milk or bread to public schools last year during the time of Vice President Sara Duterte as education secretary,” said Reps Jefferson Khonghun of Zambales and Paolo Ortega V of La Union said.
They said the “principal,” Duterte, may be as guilty as her underlings under the principle of command responsibility.
“Kawawa ‘yung mga bata sa ating public schools na intended beneficiaries. Sana di sila nakainom ng sirang gatas or nakakain ng bulok na tinapay, pero baka nagutom sila (I pity children in publis schools who were the intended beneficiaries). I hope they didn’t drink spoiled milk and ate rotten bread but maybe they became hungry),” said Rep. Zaldy Co, chair of the House committee on appropriations.
Co supported calls for his colleagues for an investigation into the COA findings, saying the school-based feeding program aims to help schoolchildren get proper nutrition.
“Kung sıra ang gatas at nutribun o tinapay na dineliver, anong kinain ng mga bata? Wala. Kung ako ang magulang ng mga apektadong bata, magagalit ako (If the milk was spoiled and the bread was rotten, what did the children eat? Nothing. If I were the parent, I’d get angry),” he said.
Khonghun and Ortega said the failure of DepEd officials under Duterte to implement the laudable program properly “not only deprived the children of getting appropriate and adequate nutrients but also of the opportunity to learn well.
“That is why we say this is criminal neglect on the part of the implementers of the program, from the highest level at DepEd to the level of the school recipient,” they said. “Sana, wala namang na-ospital sa kanila. (We hope no one was hospitalized among them). The suppliers are equally guilty and they, too, should be punished.”
The two lawmakers also pointed out that thousands of schoolchildren were affected since the delivery of spoiled milk and nutribuns with molds or insects, as reported by the COA, took place in 10 of the country’s 17 regions.
The militant Makabayan bloc also lambasted the DepEd under Duterte for the feeding program issue.
They said the DepEd under Duterte’s watch “was such a laggard” that it had dismally low accomplishments with only 208 classrooms repaired out of their own target of 7,550 and only 3 Last Mile Schools made out of their target of 88.
According to the same COA report, DepEd also had a “zero-accomplishment rate” in its computerization project “due to the (central office’s) inability to complete the procurement process for 2023.”
The Makabayan bloc also cited the delayed delivery of laptops for teachers and the possible rigging of bids for the DepEd computerization program where the government may have lost close to P1.6 billion during the re-bidding. — With Wendell Vigilia
