The ACT Teachers Partylist condemned the Department of Education (DepEd) over its failure to distribute textbooks worth P113.7 million. The group also questioned the anomalous contracts it entered for the procurement of P254-million worth of error-filled textbooks.

“Teachers have been repeatedly told to learn financial literacy whenever they demand a substantial increase in their meager salaries only to find out that the education agency itself has been inefficient and delinquent with the use of its funds,” said ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro. Teachers often complain that they would have to shell out from their own pockets to provide their students with handouts.

To make this worse, the Duterte regime continues to cut the budget for the procurement of textbooks and other learning materials. From P3.04 billion in 2017, the allocation decreased to P2.99 billion in 2018 and P1.84 billion this year.