Solon concerned over underspending for gender and development in schools

A party-list lawmaker on Monday expressed concern that several schools division offices, as well as the Department of Education (DepEd) regional office in the National Capital Region, "severely" underspent on gender and development (GAD).

Bagong Henerasyon party-list Representative Bernadette Herrera-Dy made such remark in the wake of the discrimination incident involving trans woman Gretchen Custodio Diez who was arrested as she tried to use the women's restroom in a mall in Quezon City.

Citing the 2018 Commission on Audit annual report on the DepEd, Herrera-Dy said that 32 schools division offices in five DepEd regional offices and the NCR regional office proper spent less than 5% of their budget for GAD.

"Apparently the superintendents of these 32 schools division offices do not take seriously and or may have utter disregard for the GAD and gender equality mandates of the country's laws," she said in a statement.

"In Metro Manila, practically all the NCR superintendents of DepEd underspent on GAD. Collectively, they had a budget allocation of P31.32 billion, but they only spent about P27 million on GAD. Maygahd, 0.09% lang, e ang dapat 5%!" she added.

Herrera-Dy pointed out that DepEd Eastern Visayas did as poorly as DepEd NCR when it comes to GAD spending.

But DepEd Cavite was "worse," she said, as it only spent 0.02% of its budget for GAD, while DepEd offices in Region 1 and 2 used only 0.16%.

"I will definitely remember this when the DepEd comes here to the House for the budget hearings," Herrera-Dy said.

"I will ask them about their corrective measures and get to the bottom of why they were not able to address this matter in their 2018 budget and what they are doing now with their 2019 budget," she added.

The lawmaker also proposed that gender equality restrooms be built for LGBTQIA+ students and teachers in all public schools.

"Modules for reproductive health and values education lessons are needed at the DepEd and also at the Commission on Higher Education and state universities and colleges," she said.

"CHED must make sure every state university or college has a Gender Rights Policy and GAD implementation program. The University of the Philippines has gender guidelines other SUCs can refer to as a model or template for their own policies," she added.

GMA News Online has contacted DepEd for comment but has yet to receive a reply as of posting time. —KG, GMA News