DepEd Stands Tall

Posted by Yvonne Chua
PCIJ

DROWNED out in the battle of manifestos on the ongoing political crisis is a statement released late last week by top and mid-level officials of the Department of Education (DepEd).

The statement, which appeared as a full-page ad in several national newspapers, underscored the need to keep the education system "nonpartisan and insulated from politics."

Saying that "quality education must be a path out of this crisis," the DepEd also sought a bigger budget — an 8 to 9 percent rise in its annual budget over the next five years — and the use of the Special Education Fund (SEF) of local governments solely for basic education.

A DepEd insider said education officials were constrained to issue the statement amid fears that national and local politicos who have pledged their support to the embattled Arroyo presidency would again try to meddle in the education sector, and that the president would be hard-pressed to refuse their requests given how heavily compromised she has become.

Many politicians are known to lobby for fat supply contracts and appointments of superintendents and other school officials. Their attempts, however, have been frustrated by the recent crop of DepEd officials.

By issuing last week's statement, the insider said DepEd officials are also emphasizing to whoever becomes the new education secretary—politician or otherwise—that he or she should embrace the ongoing reform agenda started under Secretary Edilberto de Jesus.

"We are setting the terms of reference. We are a professionally run organization and need to stay the course. We can't have a new secretary changing the reform agenda that took us years to craft," the insider said.

The statement was signed by all the DepEd undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, as well as nearly all its 184 schools superintendents.

Education Secretary Florencio Abad was one of the seven Cabinet members who resigned and called for President Arroyo's resignation last July 8. Arroyo has not named his replacement, but has put Undersecretary Ramon Bacani as officer-in-charge.

The appointments of several new Cabinet members are perceived to be part of the political accommodation Arroyo has been forced to make after veteran politicians like Speaker Jose de Venecia and former president Fidel V. Ramos rallied behind her amid the escalating clamor for her resignation.

Budget Secretary Romulo Neri, for example, was for a long time head of the Congressional Planning and Budget Office during De Venecia's extended speakership. He is a known JDV guy.

Some of the resigned Cabinet members have said the Arroyo administration is set to release soon the pork-barrel allocations of legislators despite the huge budget deficit to earn their support.

Trade Secretary Peter Favila was head of the Philippine National Bank during the Ramos era, when it was still in government hands, and was responsible for, among other things giving a hefty $14-million "behest" loan to businessman-rocker Ramon "RJ" Jacinto so the latter could buy PNB-owned property on Buendia Avenue in Makati in the mid-1990s.

The PCIJ wrote about this deal in 1998. What happened was PNB lent money to Jacinto so he could buy the property at a recordbreaking price of P3.7 billion. Then Jacinto offset his loans to another of his company with payments made on the property. In other words, a clever manipulation of the books that got Jacinto off the hook.  Both Favila and Jacinto can be described as Ramos boys.

Favila is also a nephew of Ramos-era Central Bank Gov. Gabriel Singson, also known to be close to Ramos.

Zamzamin Ampatuan, the new chief of the National Anti-Poverty Commission, comes from a politically influential and controversial clan in Maguindanao, with strong links to the De Venecia faction of Lakas.

One of the Ampatuans, Andal, is Maguindanao governor. As another Maguindanaoan politico revealed, Arroyo defeated Fernando Poe Jr. in 2004 with the statistically improbabale margin of 99.83 percent to 0.17 percent in seven Maguindanao towns where the mayors are all members of the Ampatuan clan.

Alexander Arevalo, the officer-in-charge at the Bureau of Customs, was a Ramos aide.  During Ramos's time, he was one of three young military officers, all graduates of the Philippine Military Academy, who served as the then president's personal assistants. A techno buff, he was largely responsible for the state-of-the art computerized back room or workroom in Malacanang, next to the Rizal Room where Ramos often received guests.

DepEd's statement in full:

A STATEMENT TO OUR LEADERS, TEACHERS, PARENTS AND COMMUNITIES

Quality Education must be a Path out of this Crisis.

We believe that quality education must be a path out of this crisis. Genuine democracies the world over succeed only where: 

• Teaching is valued by society as a time-honored profession; 
• Education is an endeavor where the whole community is involved; and
• Education system is non-partisan and insulated from politics.

The political events of these times are important to the future of the country. The running of the schools and education for all, especially our young children, however, are concerns of the present.

General Statement to the Public

The Department has put in place reforms to improve the quality of education over the past three years. These include academic reforms:

• New grading system
• Bridge program to prepare elementary graduates for high school
• Every Child a Reader program
• English, Science and Math proficiency
• Revisions to the Basic Education Curriculum
• Textbook policy (including a new, more stringent textbook content evaluation process); and
• Expansion of the Madrasah education system for young Muslim Filipinos
• Alternative Learning System for out-of-school children, youth and adults

and financial reforms:

• Decentralization of the payroll system to the regions
• Clean-up of the automatic payroll deduction system (APDS) to protect teachers from usurious lenders
• Professionalization of the Department's provident fund for teachers and non-teaching personnel
• Tightening of qualification standards in the hiring of teachers and principals
• Direct-release system and the electronic NGAS (New Government Accounting System)
• Government procurement reforms (school buildings, furniture, textbooks, instructional materials)

Over the past three years, our Department has worked hard to create and maintain a corruption-free environment with emphasis on cleaning up anomalies in hiring, procurement and finance. We are today a professionally-managed organization of educators.

Started under Secretary Edilberto C. de Jesus as the 12-Point Agenda (later the Education Roadmap), Secretary Florencio B. Abad expanded and refined these reforms as the Schools First Initiative.

To all our publics, the Department will stay the course with the Schools First Initiative that puts in place the plans for the decentralization of education down to the schools and to involve local school boards, parents and communities in taking responsibility and ownership for the achievement and performance of students under their watch.

Despite the ongoing political developments, the career professionals in the field down to our school heads and teachers assure parents that the delivery of quality education through our schools and alternative learning systems will stay focused on the Schools First Initiative. We are committed to the education of our children.

To our Leaders

Stay focused on education reforms. We need a peaceful, orderly and quick resolution to this crisis to help us focus on the task-at-hand for ourselves (quality education) and for the nation (growth and stability). Support the education reforms by significantly increasing the necessary resources to allow us to deliver on these.

To our Teachers

Stay focused on teaching. We encourage school discussion of issues to promote better understanding of the situation. But we will not tolerate mass actions that disrupt our schools. Legitimate issues should be handled within available mechanisms. We assure our teachers that the Department is working to raise the necessary resources for education, including improving teacher welfare and a salary increase.

To our Parents

Be actively involved in your children's education. Get involved with your school. This period provides us with an opportunity to clarify and affirm the values important to our society such as truth, justice, accountability, citizenship and love of country.

A Statement to All

Education is important to the future of this country. Let us spend more on public education. To our leaders, both national and local, as well as our major publics – parents, local business sector and our immediate communities – this is what we must do:

1. Raise the annual budget of the Department of Education by at least 8-9% per year over the next five years. This yearly increase of P9-10 Billion will allow us to catch up with the shortages and to provide quality inputs to keep our children engaged in the school system.
2. Focus the Special Education Fund (SEF) of local governments soely on basic education, including the education for out-of-school children, youth and adults, and on our schools. Let us minimize the use of the SEF on non-basic-education-related matters.
3. Ensure that the Department of Public Works and Highways turns over only completely-constructed school buildings. Local leaders must make sure that DPWH-constructed school buildings are complete and to specifications.
4. Depoliticize education policy. Let us not be afraid to provide an additional year of education to better prepare our children for their future. Let only properly trained pre-school teachers teach pre-school. Let us expand high school to better prepare our graduates for university or to gain more competitive skills needed for the world of work. Let us support electoral reforms that will free teachers from mandatory poll duties.

The education of our children is too important to leave to Government alone. All of us have a collective responsibility to make our education system reform. We ask all Filipinos to join us in this undertaking.