EDITORIAL - Rotten books in a rotten system

Newspaper reports quoting the Commission on Audit say a total of P6.7 million worth of books has remained unused in Central Visayas. The amount covers a total of 114,965 textbooks that never reached the hands of public school students in the region.

So what else is new? This problem has long bugged the Department of Education and it appears that it continues to do so, for reasons that are no longer left to speculation but have long been accepted as the norm in this corrupt nation.

This is not new because as early as more than a decade ago, The Freeman already exposed the practice, an exposé that led to actual raids in at least three schools in Metro Cebu, all netting thousands and thousands of brand new but unused, but by then rotting, school books.

The raids in Cebu led to a similar raid in Negros Oriental where the excesses took a different form — unused instructional materials. The Freeman exposé, and subsequent raids by state auditors, triggered the usual congressional inquiry, where the matter eventually died.

So, the practice is still alive? And why shouldn’t it? There is big money in the procurement of school materials. Fat commissions grease the palms of those involved, and rub off on those who need to be silenced or brought on board.

The more purchases made, the fatter the commissions, and never mind if the procurements turn up way beyond the need and end up being unused. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if the excesses are discovered, as in this case, since nobody has ever been made to account for them.

Name a single person who has been jailed, fined, suspended or even just reprimanded for involvement in these excess procurements. Zilch. Nobody. That means everybody is happy except the poor taxpayers who paid for the unused books, and the schoolchildren who never saw them.

But the problem does not end there. With so many palms to grease, the cost of publishing the books skyrocket, forcing publishers to cut costs elsewhere — by hiring third rate authors who cannot help but produce error-filled lessons, and using third rate materials.

With the kind of money the education department gets from the national budget, we do not believe what the COA discovered is all there is to it. We are sure there must be more unused books rotting away from view somewhere.