Capitol defends P32 million budget for school supplies

CEBU, Philippines - For Rep. Pablo John Garcia (Cebu, 3rd district), Vice Gov. Gregorio Sanchez Jr.’s complaint that the Province’s P32 million budget for school bags and school supplies for public elementary and high school students was “too much” only proves that Sanchez is “out of touch with reality.”

In a press statement furnished to The FREEMAN, Rep. Garcia said that with an estimated population of 600,000 public elementary and high school students in the entire province, the budget would amount to “a measly” P50 per student.

“The budget is not too much. It is too little. In fact, I would recommend that the budget be doubled, to include other materials needed for education,” Garcia said.

Garcia further said that while everybody – “from the President, the President-elect, Vice President, the Vice President-elect, the Senators, the Congressmen, the local officials and the ordinary man in the street” – agree that the government should be spending more for education, it is only Cebu’s vice governor who recommends spending less, “to the detriment of our schoolchildren.”

Garcia said Sanchez is apparently “out of touch” with the realities of education because he has not been visiting public schools in the past six years that he has been vice governor.

“Ask any teacher whether the vice governor has visited their public school. He doesn’t even attend school inaugurations,” said the congressman.

“Thirty-two million pesos is so much less than the budget the vice governor demanded to fund what he called a ‘pre-feasibility study’ on the trans-axial highway. Take note, not the feasibility study, but the ‘pre-feasibility study’,” Garcia said.

That pre-feasibility study, up to now, has “amounted to nothing” but “just a few scraps of paper,” he added.

“Vice Governor Sanchez wants to snatch school bags and school supplies away from schoolchildren so he can fund a study to fatten his consultants. Where are his priorities?” Garcia asked.

Earlier, Sanchez said that the P32 million amount for school supplies is too much.

The vice governor said that based on his computation from the purchases in previous years, Capitol needs only to spend about P10 million for the school bags and school supplies.

According to Vice Governor Sanchez, if the Garcia administration will allocate that amount, it should include nutritious food for the poor pupils to address malnutrition.

Aside from questioning the amount, Sanchez also asked for the immediate distribution to public elementary and high school students of the notebooks and other school supplies now deposited at the Cebu International Convention Center.

Capitol spokesman Rory Jon Sepulveda, on the other hand, advised Sanchez to wait for the distribution of the notebooks.

Sepulveda suspects that Sanchez’s concern is not for the notebooks, but the absence of his pictures in the notebooks.

“Dili angayan mabalaka si Greg kay next month ato na kana ipang-distribute sa mga kabataan,” said Sepulveda.(FREEMAN NEWS)