MANILA — The Department of Education (DepEd) said over 1,000 classrooms constructed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) were turned over despite being “incomplete.”
“They’re not totally ghost projects, but they weren’t completed… What was reported to me was that there are over 1,000 classrooms like this,” DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara said in an interview on dzRH.
“They’re like aswang,” he later said of the projects in jest, referring to a Filipino mythological creature that could be described as a shape-shifting vampire.
“I saw some in the provinces that were turned over but weren’t painted or didn’t have electricity,” Angara added, though he did not further detail where the projects were or when they were turned over.
The DepEd chief estimated that DPWH-built classrooms cost between P2.5 and 3.7 million.
He added that, while the funding for classroom construction was under the DepEd’s budget, it was the DPWH that bid out the projects to contractors.
“That’s what we want Congress to change in 2026, to give us flexibility with our budget so that we can give funds to local government units to build more classrooms,” Angara said.
He added, “We will ask Congress to have funds for completion. Funding for repairs is there now, but it can only be done when classrooms are affected by typhoons. This is a man-made calamity. The classrooms weren’t finished.”
A P872.887-billion budget is being proposed for DepEd in the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Despite this, in his message for the 2026 NEP, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the administration will be building only 4,869 classrooms next year.
DepEd previously said the country had a backlog of 165,000 classrooms. (Jason Sigales © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
