Nearly seven in 10 public schools nationwide stand on land that has yet to be titled in the name of the Department of Education (DepEd), a longstanding ownership issue that could hamper the government’s efforts to accelerate classroom construction, according to data from the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2).
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in his fifth State of the Nation Address on Monday, July 27, that the government had mobilized several agencies to help increase DepEd’s annual classroom construction output.
The agencies include the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) and local governments, which Marcos said would serve as additional ‘production arms’ in addressing the country’s classroom shortage.
The president also announced that the private sector would begin constructing more than 16,000 classrooms in Luzon through public-private partnerships (PPPs). He said more PPPs with higher production targets would soon follow in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Beyond the classroom shortage, however, another structural problem threatens to slow the government’s infrastructure drive.
Edcom 2 data showed that about 69% of public schools nationwide, or 32,424, are located on land that has not been titled in DepEd’s name. That figure far exceeds the 7,075 public schools, or 16%, whose land has already been transferred to the agency.
Another 7,373 schools are undergoing the land titling process. Of the 32,424 schools that still lack land titles, about 19%, or 6,045, are classified as ‘congested,’ underscoring the urgency of expanding school infrastructure.
Edcom 2 warned that unresolved land ownership remained a critical bottleneck to delivering much-needed education facilities.
‘Without land titling, even funded school infrastructure projects to address congestion face delays or cannot proceed,’ Edcom 2 said.
To address the longstanding issue, Edcom 2 is seeking the immediate passage of Senate Bill No. 1877, which would strengthen and protect the land tenure security of public school sites by requiring the expedited titling of all properties being used by DepEd.
A similar measure has been introduced in the House of Representatives.
Parañaque Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan has filed House Bill No. 9477, which seeks to place all untitled land occupied by public schools under DepEd’s permanent ownership to protect campuses from potential ownership disputes.
Although the measure does not directly address classroom construction, Yamsuan said securing government ownership of school sites would remove a major legal hurdle that has long complicated infrastructure development.
While not an engineering safeguard, our proposal to secure government ownership of land housing public schools would greatly contribute to the unhampered implementation of long-term safety measures for these structures, such as earthquake retrofitting, rehabilitation, and other improvements which often require clear legal rights over the land they stand on,’ he said