MANILA, Philippines — More than 200 local chief executives from across the country gathered in San Juan City to coordinate the construction of classrooms as Congress opened multiple channels for local governments to address the country’s widening classroom shortage.
The Mayor’s Dialogue on Accelerating Classroom-Building in Cities and Municipalities, hosted by San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora, brought together city and municipal mayors, Education Secretary Sonny Angara, and Senator Bam Aquino at the Makabagong San Juan National Government Center, on Wednesday.
Zamora said the Classroom-Building Acceleration Program allowed national funds for classroom construction to be downloaded directly to local governments, a shift that enables cities and municipalities to plan, build, and monitor projects themselves rather than rely on a single national agency.
“If each LGU builds on its own, we can finish faster and monitor projects better,” Zamora said, as he urged mayors to work collectively to maximize the new funding mechanism.
Aquino said the policy change responds to a classroom backlog estimated at about 166,000 rooms nationwide, a figure that could rise to 230,000 by 2028 if construction remains slow.
He said Congress allocated P66 billion in the 2026 national budget for classroom construction, targeting 25,000 to 30,000 classrooms in a single year through parallel implementation by local governments, national agencies, and the private sector.
Aquino said relying on one implementing agency has proven insufficient given the scale of the shortage, adding that special provisions in the 2026 General Appropriations Act already allow LGUs to build, lease, or purchase buildings for use as classrooms even as the CAP bill awaits final approval.
“Even if the CAP bill is not yet fully passed, LGUs can already start building classrooms now,” Aquino said.
Angara said the Department of Education would work with local governments on site selection, technical standards, and fund management, while prioritizing areas with the most severe congestion, including the National Capital Region and nearby regions.
He said DepEd would also use alternative delivery modes such as leasing closed private school facilities, rehabilitation of existing structures, and large-scale public-private partnerships to speed up decongestion.
Angara said transparency measures would be expanded so communities and parents could track school conditions and project performance, as local governments begin implementing classroom projects under the CAP framework.
