Non-poor beneficiaries included in DepEd program; govt loses P8.6B

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SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian yesterday said the government lost P8.6 billion after the Educational Service Contracting (ESC), a partnership program of the Department of Education, included as beneficiaries students belonging to non-poor households from 2019 to 2021.

Gatchalian said they discovered this after analyzing the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) which showed that for the school year 2020-2021, 68 percent of the ESC recipients were from non-poor households or those with incomes above or equal to the per capita threshold.

He said that for the school year 2019-2020, 59 percent of non-poor families benefited from the program.

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The ESC is a partnership program of the DepEd that seeks to decongest overcrowded public junior high schools. Under the program, the government shoulders the tuition and other fees of excess students in public schools who enter private schools contracted by the DepEd.

Gatchalian said the figures reflect the findings of the Commission on Audit’s Performance Audit Report in 2018, wherein state auditors also recommended that DepEd should ensure that the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) should prioritize underprivileged learners.

The ESC Program is under the GASTPE.

“To me, this is the height of injustice. Humihingi tayo ng pondo, binibigay natin sa mga hindi mahihirap (We are asking for funds, but we are giving it to those who are not poor).

And as taxpayers, we’re subsidizing the non-poor,” he said during last Wednesday’s hearing on the Expanded GASTPE Law.

“The spirit of the law is already giving priority to the poorest of the poor. And I think it’s embedded in all of us. We all know that resources are scarce, we all know that during the budget season, we fight for resources and from the meager resources that we get. The allocation should be prioritizing the poor,” Gatchalian added.

During the same hearing, Tara Rama, Director III from the DepEd’s Government Assistance and Subsidies Office (GASO) said the 2017 ESC guidelines do not strictly mandate giving priority to the poor, but assured that their office is taking the lead to revise the guidelines.

Gatchalian recommended prioritizing the poor in government subsidy programs to private school learners as he mulled amendments to the E-GASTPE Law.

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