MANILA, Philippines – The Amplify Education Budget Initiative, the budget-advocacy campaign of the youth-led coalition Multiply-Ed (X-Ed) Philippines, today raised the alarm over what it called a sharp turn toward discretionary, centrally-pooled spending in the proposed 2027 budget of the Department of Education (DepEd). Programs that used to be split into dedicated line items or distributed to regional offices, the group said, have been consolidated into a handful of lump-sum allocations held at the DepEd Central Office, concentrating decisions over tens of billions of pesos in a single office at the very moment the country heads into an election cycle.
The coalition stressed that its concern is not that the money exists, but where the discretion now sits. When a budget line names the region, the school, or the specific purpose it must serve, the public can follow the peso from appropriation to delivery. When the same money is merged into a broad Central Office pool, that trail goes dark, and the choice of who benefits shifts from a transparent formula to an official’s discretion.
“Paano i-e-explain ng DepEd na nawala yung mga regional allocations ng budget, even dedicated line items, at lahat napunta sa Central Office under Subsidies to Other Agencies? Ito ay porma ng patronage politics at maaaring mag-breed ng discretion sa kung sino ang gustong bigyan ng Central Office sa ilalim ni Angara,” said John Elsisura, National Campaign Coordinator ng Amplify Education Budget Initiative.
Voucher programs
For years the government’s education subsidy programs appeared in the budget as distinct, trackable items: the Education Service Contracting (ESC) subsidy for junior high school learners in private schools, the Senior High School (SHS) Voucher Program, and the Joint Delivery Voucher Program (JDVP) for senior high school learners in areas without public SHS offerings.
In the 2027 proposal, these are folded into a single combined allocation, Government Assistance and Subsidies (ESC, SHS Voucher, JDVP), of about P38.1 billion, administered centrally. Merging three separate entitlements into one pooled line, the coalition warned, obscures how much reaches each type of learner and removes the per-program guardrails that let Congress and the public hold each subsidy to account.
Inclusive-education funds lose their regional footing
The pattern repeats in inclusive education. The Indigenous Peoples Education (IPEd) Program and the Madrasah Education Program, which serve some of the most geographically dispersed and marginalized learners in the country, were in past appropriations accompanied by allocations that flowed to regional offices closest to those communities.
In the 2027 structure, the funds are lodged at the Central Office, at roughly P76 million for IPEd and P504 million for the Madrasah program, already small sums now made dependent on central release rather than regional planning. Programs designed to reach Indigenous and Muslim learners where they are, the coalition argued, are the ones that least tolerate a distant, one-size decision on how the money is used.
“Anong alam ng Central Office sa danas ng mga Indigenous Learners? Hindi ba’t mas magandang budget implementation kung ibigay yung budget para sa IPEd sa mga Regional Offices dahil mas alam nila ang pangangailangan ng mga mag-aaral na IPs?” asked Humphrey Soriano, Engagement Officer of Multiply-Ed Philippines.
Last Mile Schools, WINS disappear into a single facilities pool, with no published build list
Targeted streams such as the Last Mile Schools Program, for the hardest-to-reach communities, and WASH in Schools (WINS), for water, sanitation, and hygiene, now sit under the broad Basic Education Facilities allocation, about P30.6 billion in new appropriations, funneled to the Central Office. The coalition noted the well-documented problem that follows: the department has not published a transparent, disaggregated list of which classrooms it will build, in which schools, or what it intends to procure.
Citizens and school communities have asked repeatedly, over many budget cycles, for exactly this information, and have not received it. A lump-sum facilities budget without a public project list, the group said, is discretion without a paper trail.
“Ang tagal na naming hinihingi sa DepEd ang allocation list ng mga classrooms, sa ganitong karakas ng Department, at ang history nila ng hindi pagpupublish kung saan mapupunta ang budget, mas mahihirapan tayong i-monitor kung ano yung dapat bilhin sa perang ibibigay sa kanila,” added Soriano.
Discretionary, centrally-pooled budgeting, the coalition said, is a dangerous step backward for accountable public fiscal management, and a particularly risky one to take in an election season, when broad, unaudited pools are most easily turned into patronage. Amplify is therefore calling on DepEd and Congress to:
● Disaggregate the pooled lines. Restore ESC, the SHS Voucher, and the JDVP as separate, named line items, each with its own target learner count and budget.
● Return regional allocations. Give IPEd, the Madrasah Education Program, and other inclusive-education funds explicit regional shares, released to the regional offices that plan with those communities.
● Unbundle and publish the facilities program. Break Basic Education Facilities back into its targeted streams, including Last Mile Schools and WINS, and publish a school-level list of classrooms to be built and items to be procured, before the budget is enacted.
● Legislate the disclosure. Write the publication of project and procurement lists into the special provisions of the 2027 General Appropriations Act, so transparency is a legal obligation and not a favor.
The question the coalition put to the department is direct: why can the budget not be dislodged into its specific line items, rather than lumped in the Central Office, when the public has asked, again and again and without answer, for the department simply to name what it will build and buy?
A budget that cannot answer that question, Amplify said, has made itself impossible to watch.
About the Amplify Education Budget Initiative
The Amplify Education Budget Initiative is the budget-advocacy campaign of Multiply-Ed (X-Ed) Philippines, the only youth-led budget coalition in the country. It monitors the education budget from appropriation to delivery, tracks compliance with DepEd service standards through its multi-region school monitoring, and pushes for a transparent, adequately funded, and accountable education budget under the banner #MalayangEdukasyonPH.
