By Marjaleen Ramos

The Department of Education (DepEd) on Monday defended over P300 million spent on trainings and seminars which the Commission on Audit (COA) red-flagged as “irregular, unnecessary, excessive, and extravagant” spending.

“The Department of Education actually has the largest budget in the government. We have about 900,000 total employees. Meron na kaming policy na inilagay na limitahan ang training ng employees, especially ng teachers,” DepEd Undersecretary Annalyn Sevilla said in an interview with DZMM.

She cited that DepEd’s P4 billion budget for training per year covers 47,000 schools, 223 school divisions, and 16 regions in the country.

In its annual audit report, COA found out that DepEd has over P13.898 billion in undocumented expenses incurred in 2018.

According to the COA, of the 3.4 million idle learning materials, 1.6 million were procured in 2015, 1.2 million in 2016, 440,591 in 2014, and 128,111 in 2017.

Due to its findings, the COA tasked officials of the DepEd to submit missing documents to avoid audit suspensions and to refrain from conducting out-of-town meeting/seminar/conference unless extremely necessary.

Read more: COA finds P113.70-M unutilized instructional materials in DepEd warehouses

Sevilla said the agency was already able to explain to COA that the training was conducted everywhere and is not done in just one place.

“Hindi po pupuwede na mabigyan ng budget ang ating training na more than P2,000 a day per person so imposible po na may mga hotel tayo na makukuha na lagpas P2,000 per person ang ibibigay,” she said.

She also said that they cannot give a training budget of more than P2,000 per person a day, adding that it’s impossible for them to pay for a hotel that costs more than P2,000 per day.

“Ang ‘di natin maiiwasan ay ‘yung training ng teachers because they need that. They really need to be trained,” she added.

COA also noted in its report that the transactions violated the guidelines for government expenditures, including Presidential Decree No. 1445, the Government Auditing Code of the Philippines and COA Circular No. 2012-003.

The Bureau of Curriculum and Development, Bureau of Learning Resources, and the Curriculum and Instruction are already looking into about P254 million worth of learning materials intended for Grade 3 students that are riddled with errors despite the agency’s three-step review process, Sevilla added.

“Ni-review po nila, hindi lamang ang grade levels na may error, kundi lahat na po ng libro na meron tayo, from Kinder to Grade 12.”