President Marcos wants local government units (LGUs) to handle classroom construction funds, Malacañang said yesterday.
An agreement to accelerate classroom construction nationwide will be signed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Department of Education (DepEd) and LGUs, Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said.
Funds will be downloaded to LGUs to implement the construction, while the DPWH and DepEd will oversee and monitor progress, she explained.
Around 2,370 classrooms are being targeted for completion by next year.
Enough is enough
Funds for classroom construction in 2026 should no longer be given to the DPWH after completing only 22 facilities this year, Education Secretary Sonny Angara stressed.
‘Enough is enough,’ he said, as the country grapples with widespread corruption in infrastructure deals.
Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon earlier admitted that the DPWH built only 22 of the 1,700 classrooms targeted for completion this year.
‘The budget should be returned to the DepEd in 2026,’ Angara said.
‘It is unacceptable that only 22 classrooms were completed under the previous DPWH leadership despite the funding and assistance from the DepEd,’ he added.
Angara has vowed to give the funds to LGUs, the Armed Forces of the Philippines Corps of Engineers and private sector.
With a classroom shortage of 146,000, Angara said the agency will work hard to build 40,000 classrooms by 2028.
As mandated in the Constitution, education will receive the highest allocation in 2026 – a record-high P1.28 trillion, as approved on third and final reading by the House of Representatives earlier this month.
Under Angara’s leadership, the total education allocation increased from P1.22 trillion to P1.28 trillion, after the House added P56.6 billion.
For the basic education facilities program, the House added P35 billion, bringing its total to P63.2 billion.
‘This would translate to 25,200 new and rehabilitated classrooms for fiscal year 2026,’ House appropriations panel chair Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing said.
Poor performance
With the DPWH’s dismal performance, the Marcos administration must fix and streamline the classroom construction process and hold erring officials accountable, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers said.
The ACT is also skeptical of the proposed Classroom-Building Acceleration Program, as it ‘shifts the national government’s constitutional duty to provide free, quality education onto local governments and the private sector.’
State engineers are generally uninterested from building classrooms in public schools due to the absence of huge kickbacks, Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste said.
‘The reason there’s a classroom shortage is because there are almost no kickbacks in classrooms. It is easier to do substandard work on the thickness of an asphalt project than on a three-story classroom building,’ he asserted.
‘Corruption has incentivized horizontal projects like flood control, asphalt overlay and slope protection to be prioritized in the DPWH budget over vertical projects like classrooms,’ he added.
Wellness break for teachers
In another development, the DepEd has announced a wellness break for learners and teachers from Oct. 27 to 30.
The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition earlier asked Angara to act on their petition to allow a health break for educators instead of requiring them to attend an in-service training (INSET).
In the school calendar, the period of Oct. 27 to 30 is officially designated as a health and wellness break for teachers and learners.
Forcing teachers to attend the in-service training defeats the purpose of the supposed wellness break, the group pointed out.
Angara said schools and divisions that have paid for venues and meals for INSET can reschedule.
‘If not feasible, activities may still push through voluntarily and teachers who join will no longer be required to attend similar trainings later in the school year,’ he added.
INSET and professional development programs should still be conducted within the remaining days of school year 2025-2026, the DepEd maintained.