The importance of his assignment and the difficulty of the job were not lost on the new Cabinet member. The country’s economic competitiveness and our ability to lift our people from poverty, he said, depends on how good a job his 500,000 strong bureaucracy delivers. One thing he said he is certain of is that the job has become too big for government alone to handle.
A partnership with the private sector is crucial, he said, in helping DepEd deliver on its mandates. On this point, Jesli was elated to know that there is no shortage of enthusiasm and actual programs being implemented by the private sector, in support of public education. There is the Centex program of Ayala Foundation, FUSE program designed to upgrade teacher quality from Lucio Tan’s companies and the multi-media programs of the Lopez Group, Knowledge Channel of SkyCable and E-media of ABS-CBN.
Jesli also said that he is now finding out there is no shortage of laws either, to encourage more private sector initiatives in education, even if he admits that these laws are not yet being marketed to the fullest. There is for instance, R.A. 8525 or the Adopt-a-School law which provides for 150 percent tax deductibility for private entities adopting a public school and spending for its needs. There is also another law that obligates PCSO and Pagcor to jointly contribute P60 million a year to help DepEd produce quality audio visual teaching materials.
As Jesli is briefed on the many programs and resources of DepEd, it becomes clear to him that it would test his management savvy to organize everything and give everyone a single minded focus on the ultimate objective of raising the quality of graduates produced by the system. In the short term, he must also deliver a number of good news developments to show results that would encourage everyone to keep on working.
Lapus also said his priority is to improve the quality of education by providing more training for teachers. "How can we produce good students if their teachers are not good in the subjects they teach? Most math and science teachers have masteral degrees in other fields," he said. The help of the private sector will be tapped for these teacher-training programs.
His big problem is budget constraints. With a reenacted 2005 budget of only about P102 billion, the DepEd is short by some P7.5 billion for programs meant to be implemented this year, Lapus said.
"Our student population grows at an average rate of 2.7 percent, while the education budget grows only at about two percent," Lapus said. "We can’t catch up with backlogs with inflation rate also rising. Even if education gets an increase of 7.5 percent in its yearly budget, it would be able to catch up only with the (student) population increase."
He also noted DepEd’s decreasing share of the budget pie. He said that, in 2000, the national budget’s allocation for education was set at 14 percent, but this year’s allocation is only 11 percent of the total budget appropriation. The other reality he faces at DepEd is its heavy manpower cost, limiting resources that must be allocated for other requirements. DepEd accounts for about 30 percent of the government bureaucracy, with 92 percent of its budget allocated for payroll.
Still, the incoming DepEd chief promises to work for "new standards" for teachers’ salaries – similar to the standards applied for members of the police and the military. In Congress, Lapus authored bills that sought to improve the welfare of public school teachers, including one that established ceilings on how much could be deducted from their salaries to pay for loans and another imposing a maximum of 18 percent interest, instead of the then prevailing 70 to even 100 percent interest on loans they obtained from various sources, including loan sharks.
Just recently, I have read in your column issues about tourism and I really appreciate your concern with tourism industry in our country. I would like to share with you my experience in the DOT about two years ago when I applied for DOT accreditation for my resort in Rizal. They asked for so many things only to find out later that accreditation is not compulsory. So my immediate reaction was, why should I bother about accreditation when I can market my place without it. So I decided to re-study my priorities first.
In the course of my "questioning" of the whys and wherefores of resort development, it occurred to me the main problem of the department was its diminished regulatory power through a non compulsory accreditation of tourist establishments. The power to regulate tourist establishments has been devolved to the local government as mandated in the 1991 local government code. What was left with the DOT is only the non compulsory accreditation of tourist establishments.
Now, the DOT is busy promoting and marketing the Philippines abroad wasting much-needed dollars for promotion alone. What a way of spending taxpayers’ money indeed! How can you promote a place when it is not properly developed because it was left to the mercy of LGUs whose priority is not tourism but the next election and furthermore, do not know anything about tourism?
How can I say this? Because some DOT employees themselves are not knowledgeable about tourism, how much more the LGUs, which by the way ‘change its guards’ every three years.
The result of this DOT policy can be felt easily in tourist businesses where unregulated facilities and services are pervasive. Poor-quality tourist services and establishments are everywhere because local governments do not care about them at all, for as long as the tourist businesses pay their yearly license dues.
Poor Secretary Ace Durano, his problems are not the beautiful tourist destinations being disturbed by terrorists or the travel advisories being released by consular offices. Terrorism happens everywhere in the world but even in Israel, tourists still flock there because their tourism agencies have the power to make sure their hotels and accommodations are well furnished and their hotel staff well trained according to international standards.
What about our DOT? Well, you be the judge. Tourists do not come to the Philippines because the DOT cannot guarantee a 100 percent safe, convenient and enjoyable stay here. They choose other Asean countries where they are assured of the value of their money’s worth.
Ed was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really pissed. She told him "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in six seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE".
The next morning Ed got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a small box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale.
Funeral services for Ed have been scheduled for Friday.
Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com