Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 15) — With most educators scrambling for laptops ahead of the new school year, a federation of public school teachers welcomed the proposed investigation on the controversial laptop deal flagged by state auditors.
Speaking to CNN Philippines’ The Source on Monday, Teachers’ Dignity Coalition national chairperson Benjo Basas said the entry-level laptops for public school teachers purchased for the Department of Education by the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management that reportedly cost over ₱58,000, could usually be bought for half the price by teachers who needed to shell out money from their own pockets.
“In fact, ako, ang ginagamit ko nga binili namin ito 2019 pa, parang ₱22,000 lang bili namin. At ok pa naman nagagamit pa hanggang ngayon (In fact, the laptop I bought in 2019 only cost around ₱22,000. And it still works just fine until now),” Basas said.
He added that when the country shifted to distance learning in 2020, public school teachers from their group appealed to the DepEd to provide them laptops to aid them with their teaching, but they could not get any.
“Unfortunately, since 2020, noong kami ay humihingi ng laptop noong pagpasok ng distance learning system, sinasabi ng DepEd na wala. Kaya nga we turned to LGUs, ang iba willing and able, ang iba hindi kayang magbigay,” he shared.
[Translation: Unfortunately, since 2020, when we were asking for laptops when we shifted to the distance learning system, the DepEd has been saying they don’t have anything to provide. That’s why we turned to LGUs, some are willing and able, others were able to provide.]
Citing a DepEd official from last year, Basas said the agency claimed to have distributed over 350,000 units to teachers, a portion of which were even purchased through the Bayanihan 2.
READ: DepEd: ₱37B needed for teachers’ laptops, data connectivity
“Kung since 2019, nagpurchase ng 350,000 laptops, dapat ganoon din kadami ang teachers na nabigyan pero hindi ganoon kadami ang nabigyan ng laptop,” he added
[Translation: If there were 350,000 laptops purchased since 2019, then the number of teachers given laptops should be the same, but that’s not the case.]
Basas said that he does not have an exact figure on how many from their group were able to receive a unit from the DepEd, but he said that there are 850,000 public school teachers out of a million teaching and non-teaching personnel under DepEd.
Minority senators Risa Hontiveros and Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, as well as the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives are seeking a probe into the DepEd laptop deal, after the Commission on Audit flagged the procurement worth ₱2.4 billion for the devices that turned out to be outdated.
Meanwhile, the DepEd said that it already wrote to the COA requesting another round of special audit to look deeper into the issue.
