Explainer: The 'ghost students' in DepEd's voucher program
MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education faces a blind spot in its monitoring of billions in senior high school subsidies: it can't physically check if every single student receiving government vouchers actually exists.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara acknowledged this limitation on Wednesday, February 19, saying the department needs to expand its monitoring of schools receiving vouchers beyond physical inspections.
This is after the DepEd's central office announced this week that it is probing at least 12 private schools across nine regions accused of listing non-existent enrollees in the voucher program.
"It's impossible to visit all schools – there are thousands," Angara said in mixed English and Filipino in an interview at the sidelines of an event at the Philippine International Convention Center.
"But in this day and age, we have communications and technology that we can use to validate," he added.
Reports of undocumented senior high voucher beneficiaries, dubbed "ghost students" by some officials, are as old as the senior high program itself, which was rolled out nationwide starting school year 2016-2017.
State auditors in 2016-2017 identified at least 115 cases of students billed multiple times in the same school year, while a 2018 audit revealed schools had returned P10.4 million for double-billed grantees.
Here's an overview of the issue.
What's the voucher program?
The senior high school voucher program provides subsidies to qualified Grade 11 and 12 students in participating private schools.
The voucher subsidy is not handed to students directly in the form of cash but is disbursed by DepEd directly to the beneficiary's chosen school.
DepEd guidelines specifically identify "padding and/or inclusion of ghost students" in the list of beneficiaries as a program violation.
Other violations include falsification of data and billing of unqualified voucher beneficiaries, among others.
How does DepEd monitor?
The department mainly verifies schools' list of voucher recipients through regular unannounced visits to schools, according to its latest guidelines for the senior high voucher program.
These visits are conducted by DepEd's government assistance and subsidies team and officials of the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC) — the private entity that the agency has contracted to administer the voucher program. PEAC is chaired by the DepEd but its members are from private schools.
Schools are not allowed to deny these surprise visits and cannot refuse entry to the monitoring teams.
According to DepEd's guidelines, during these visits, the schools are required to gather all voucher beneficiaries for a roll call "and/or" present class records and other relevant documents.
The discovery of "ghost students," however, does not automatically indicate that the list of recipients was tampered with. Some are results of clerical errors.
The department specifically defines ghost students in several ways:
- significant number of absent voucher beneficiaries during a monitoring visit whose absence cannot be satisfactorily explained by the school officials
- beneficiaries listed under incorrect school campuses
- enrollees who have not attended classes since the start of the semester
- students listed multiple times in the same school or in different senior high schools
Schools found committing any violation of the program's rules face two consequences: suspension from the senior high voucher program, and/or disqualification from all DepEd grants and subsidies.
If found to have excess subsidies, schools must return these to the department.
Despite these outlined penalties, Angara on Wednesday said the current sanctions might not be enough.
"I wonder why no one gets punished for this," the DepEd chief told reporters. "The only punishment is removal of the voucher."
Perennial problem
As early as 2016-2017, the Commission on Audit discovered 115 "ghost students" who were billed multiple times in the same school year under the senior high voucher program.
Later, a 2018 performance audit of the program revealed more systemic issues. The audit found no clear directives from DepEd's central office for reviewing billing statements, leaving regional and division offices to conduct validation at their own discretion. By September 2018, schools had returned P10.4 million for double-billed grantees.
The problem persisted years later. In March 2024, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian revealed an even larger scale of potential violations: there could be as many as 19,000 undocumented beneficiaries in DepEd's broader education assistance program (E-GASTPE), according to PEAC data.
Solutions ahead
Beyond using technology to tighten the department's monitoring of voucher use, Angara said they are also investigating potential collusion between DepEd officials and voucher-receiving schools.
"We're studying if there might be collusion because this kind of information is only handled by a few people," Angara said in mixed Filipino and English. He noted that a previous investigation had led to charges against a former DepEd official.
School officials who submit false information may face perjury charges for documents signed under oath, the DepEd secretary added.
"We will make an example out of people who are proven to have intentionally done this. Because one or two people — we can consider that a clerical error," he said.
"But for those with a pattern of taking advantage, of looking for loopholes to make a profit... We will make examples of them," Angara added.
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