"This is part of the wish list that President Arroyo has submitted to Congress under the proposed P1-trillion 2006 budget. The wish list aims to erase shortages in teachers, equipment, classrooms and supplies and arrest the decline in the quality of basic public education," said Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr.
"This is unprecedented in terms of funding and new programs. The shopping list is long. The impression it conveys is that when it comes to education, the President, who once taught economics at Ateneo and Assumption College, wants to put government money where its mouth is," he said.
The hiring of 9,200 new teachers would cost P1.2 billion. The wish list also includes P1.7 billion for the additional 10,000 teachers hired this year, P1.8 billion to buy 36.2 million textbooks, P1 billion for 1.3 million chairs, P2 billion for 5,000 new classrooms, P1.9 billion for the tuition subsidies of 475,000 students in private high schools, P581 million of the training of 25,000 Math, English and Science teachers, P1.1 billion for the tuition and stipend of 66,827 college voc-tech scholars, and P1.6 billion to feed 2.5 million pupils with vitamin-enriched noodles.
Andaya said his committee is inclined to approve the listed funds and programs "without delay and without cuts."
He said he had been told by Malacañang officials that higher funding for education "is not a one-shot deal but will become a yearly feature of the budget."
As a result of the "manifest bias for education," he said the Armed Forces modernization may have to take a back seat and give way to school modernization as the two concerns compete for scarce government funds.
"We can probably exist without jets in the sky, but can we (exist) without teachers in schools? This is not to say that we will neglect the basic requirements of our soldiers. We will continue to fund those needs," he added. — Jess Diaz