THE Department of Education (DepEd) has expanded its nationwide school infrastructure program, reaching 100 percent of provinces, 87 percent of cities, and 75 percent of municipalities, representing 1,118 out of 1,493 municipalities across the country. In a statement before the Senate Committee on Basic Education hearing on Thursday, Education Undersecretary for Legal and Legislative Affairs Filemon Ray Javier said that the agency is implementing long-term, structural solutions to address classroom backlog.”
Since Secretary Sonny Angara took office two years ago, it has been clear that one of his priorities is to address the shortage of classrooms across the country. For a problem of this magnitude, the solution must be permanent and sound,” Javier said.”
We assure this Committee that we remain steadfast in ensuring that we deliver the promised classrooms at the soonest possible time. We needed to undergo delicate and deliberate steps in ensuring that the solution to this problem is permanent,” he added.DepEd said that LGU partnerships are expected to expand steadily as project milestones progress.Out of the P67.9 billion program allocation for 2026, DepEd has mobilized P49.8 billion to deliver an initial batch of 14,601 new classrooms.
This initial funding package allocates P22.35 billion for Local Government Unit (LGU) projects to build 6,353 classrooms, P20.85 billion via the Department of Public Works and Highways for 6,134 classrooms, P3.5 billion for 1,622 DepEd Learning Continuity Spaces, and P3 billion for civil society and non-government organizations and Last Mile Schools to build 515 classrooms.
To prevent past administrative delays caused by incomplete paper records, DepEd conducted systematic legal and technical validations — reviewing over 47,972 original school site records to confirm buildable space and ownership. DepEd also deployed one engineer and four technical personnel to every Schools Division Office. The team validated and digitized over 47,972 original school site records to confirm ownership and buildable space.
