Gatchalian: DepEd's budget 'rational' as it can be used to solve child abuse, crimes hounding education

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has expressed belief that the P150-million confidential fund requested by the Department of Education is "rational" as this can be used to solve cases of child abuse, sexual harassment, and other crimes hounding the education sector.

"If they think the confidential funds are important to solve issues, for example, sexual harassment issues, issues on let's say child abuse, issues on crime-related activities within the school perimeter, then kailangan (it is needed)," Gatchalian, basic education committee chairman, said in an interview with reporters.

"May mga problema talaga ang schools natin at ang communities natin. So kung kailangan nila ng tools to solve crimes through confidential funds, then nakikita ko rational naman 'yon," he added.

(Our schools and communities really have a problem so if they need tools to solve crimes through confidential funds, then I think it is rational."

On the amount that the DepEd requested for its confidential fund, Gatchalian said it should be put in context, explaining that DepEd is managing 90% of the country's total student population with around 23 million students and some 60,000 public schools.

He also pointed out that confidential funds can be granted to both law enforcement agencies and other government agencies.

Gatchalian is assured that there are enough safeguards in monitoring the use of such funds, as these have reportorial requirements to the Commission on Audit, the Office of the President, and Congress.

"May safeguards tayo. So COA is one, Office of the President is another, and I believe may report din 'yan sa Congress," he said.

During the Senate finance committee hearing on DepEd's proposed budget for 2023, Senator Risa Hontiveros asked the agency to realign its proposed P150-million confidential fund to restore the budget for Indigenous Peoples' (IP) education.

Hontiveros said the proposed budget for IP education programs of P53.4 million, down from P144.3 million this year, caught her attention.

In response, Vice President and concurrent Education Secretary Sara Duterte, citing Joint Circular 2015-01, said confidential expenses refer to “those expenses pertaining/related to surveillance activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support the mandate or operations of the agency.”

The DepEd earlier said that surveillance and intelligence gathering are needed to ensure that its projects are target-specific and would result in the broader protection of their personnel and students against sexual abuse and all other forms of violence, graft, and corruption; involvement in illegal drugs of learners and personnel; recruitment to insurgency, terrorism, and violent extremism; child labor; child pornography; and recruitment to criminal activities, gangsterism, and financial and other scams.

“With regards to the budget cuts within the DepEd, we can work out realignments in our budget so that we can fund programs, activities, and budget that need funding,” Duterte said.

“With regards to confidential funds, this is a proposal that we submitted to Congress and as I said earlier with regards to the confidential fund of the Office of the Vice President we submit to the wisdom of the Congress with regards to the amount and propriety matter on decision on confidential funds,” she said.

“But we would like to put on record that we reassure the Congress and the public that these funds will be used in relation to what is allowed in the joint circular of those agencies mentioned earlier 2015-01,” she added.—AOL, GMA News