ILOILO City – Budget and land issues are slowing down the construction of school buildings, according to National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Region 6 director Ro-Ann Bacal.
Bacal bared that these backlogs in school facilities are mainly due to issues such as poor accessibility of school sites and fund allocation.
“This is not just a problem in Western Visayas but also all over the country na medyo slow ang disbursement ng budget for school buildings,” Bacal said.
According to Bacal, either the schools concerned do not have enough area for new school buildings or their land ownership is being questioned.
“You know the areas for school buildings ang hirap na ngayon mag-procure,” she said, adding that NEDA is working hard together with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and Department of Education (DepEd) to hasten the disbursement of fund.
According to Bacal, they are eyeing to tap other agencies and local government units in constructing school facilities to solve this perennial problem.
“We are trying to look at ways which DepEd can also tap other implementing agencies such as the
Philippines Army or through the local government or private sectors and the non-government organization because we had had best practices form the Filipino Chinese Chamber,” Bacal explained, saying that this issue should be solve by not “playing catch up with backlogs” in school buildings, but instead “building forward.”
“So, we hope to be able to resolve some of this you know the population is growing and growing and we need to make sure that we have enough facilities to accommodate yung mga ano…,” said the NEDA regional director./PN
