TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines- Senator Loren Legarda in a recent press release said it is “unacceptable” that there are millions of unobligated fund of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Department of Education (DepEd) while there are millions worth of unrehabilitated classrooms.
Legarda was reacting to a Northern Forum and Rappler report which said that P597 million worth of classrooms damaged by Super Typhoon Lawin last year have yet to be addressed.
As of posting, there are no released funds yet in the repair of classrooms other than temporary wooden classrooms.
Legarda, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, said that she will ensure that funds are appropriated for the repair or construction of buildings in schools, universities and colleges in Cagayan province that were damaged the typhoon.
“It is unacceptable that billions of funds remain unused when there are students and teachers suffering from damaged, unsafe, leaking classrooms and buildings in their schools, universities and colleges,” Legarda said.
She said these millions of amount of unobligated funds could have been used for the rehabilitation.
“If requests have been made for the rehabilitation of the damaged schools, these should have been either granted since there are still available funds for 2017 or included in the proposed budget for 2018. We will look into this and ensure that funds are made available,” she added.
Northern Forum earlier reported that Cagayan State University (CSU)-Piat Campus and CSU-Carig Campus incurred the most damages among the schools affected. Moreover, there are 1,282 damaged classrooms of the DepEd.
DepEd, according to Legarda, still have unobligated funds for the construction of classrooms worth P196 million pesos from their 2016 budget and P78.877 billion pesos from their 2017 budget, which will all expire by December 2017 if not obligated.
CHED, meanwhile, still has unobligated funds for capital outlay worth P328.253 million as of June 2017. Northernforum.net
