MANILA, (PIA) -- The height of injustice. This is how Senator Win Gatchalian described the slot allocations of the Educational Service Contracting (ESC) for beneficiaries, the majority of whom hail from non-poor households.

The senator’s office analyzed data from the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) 2020 and 2022 and found that for School Year 2020-2021, 68 percent of ESC recipients were from non-poor households or those whose incomes are above or equal to the per capita threshold. For School Year 2019-2020, 59 percent were from non-poor households.

The ESC is a partnership program of the Department of Education (DepEd) that seeks to decongest overcrowded public junior high schools. Under the program, the government shoulders the tuition and other fees of excess students in public schools who enter private schools contracted by the DepEd.

Gatchalian added that these figures reflect the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) in 2018. In a Performance Audit Report, state auditors recommended that the DepEd should ensure that the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) prioritize underprivileged learners. The ESC is a program under GASTPE.

Based on higher end estimates from the senator’s office, the leakage from the ESC program is worth P8.6 billion.

“To me this is the height of injustice. Humihingi tayo ng pondo, binibigay natin sa hindi mahihirap. And as taxpayers, we’re subsidizing the non-poor,” said Gatchalian during a hearing on the implementation of the ‘Expanded Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Act’ (Republic Act No. 8545) or the e-GASTPE law.

“The spirit of the law is already giving priority to the poorest of the poor. And I think it’s embedded in all of us. We all know that resources are scarce, we all know that during budget season, we fight for resources, and from the meager resources that we get, the allocation should be prioritizing the poor,” Gatchalian said.

Atty. Tara Rama, Director III from the DepEd’s Government Assistance and Subsidies Office (GASO), confirmed that under the 2017 ESC guidelines do not strictly mandate prioritization of the poor. She said, however, that the GASO is taking the lead to revise the ESC guidelines.

Gatchalian concluded by recommending the prioritization of the poor in government subsidy programs to private school learners. He also mulls amendments to the e-GASTPE law. (PIA-NCR)