Solon wants more budget for TESDA in 2020

A lawmaker on Thursday called on the House of Representatives to give more budget to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) for 2020 after learning that it got the least chunk in the appropriations for the education sector.

During its budget presentation before the House Committee on Appropriations, TESDA Director-General Isidro Lapeña said that the agency has been recommended only a P11.85-billion budget for 2020, which is around 6% lower than the P12.55-billion appropriations it received in the 2019 General Appropriations Act.

But when compared to other agencies in the education sector, TESDA has the lowest budget allocation. Under the 2020 National Expenditure Program (NEP), the Department of Education (DepEd) was recommended a budget of P551.7 billion, while the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has a budget of P68.5 billion.

RECOBODA party-list Representative Godofredo Guya expressed concern over this budget distribution, especially that TESDA, he said, is the agency that hones the technical skills needed by Filipinos for their chosen livelihood.

"Are you comfortable [with] this budget? Mas maliit yung budget mo kesa DepEd and CHED?" Guya asked Lapeña.

"Dapat siguro, baliktarin natin. We have to give more budget for skills training. If we're going to look at the underemployed, ang dami pa. For the record, I think we have to look at this one," he added.

Lapeña said that they indeed need more budget to continue giving assistance to those who need jobs and livelihood.

"If we have more budget, we can serve more kababayans that need assistance lalo na yung unemployed even those marginalized, and this will improve yung pyramidal structure ng ating society, improving yung middle class natin," he said.

Lapeña told Guya that they need an additional budget of at least P2.8 billion, but Guya thinks that such amount is still too small.

"Parang insulto sa akin na TESDA pinakamaliit," Guya said.

In the P11.85 billion budget for TESDA under the 2020 NEP, P49.76 million will be set for the technical education and skills development policy program, P84.25 million will be allocated for the technical education and skills development regulatory program, and P11.3 billion for the technical education and skills development program.

However, still not included in the 2020 NEP budget for TESDA is the budget requirement for the implementation of the Tulong Trabaho Act, which mandates free access to technical-vocational education in order to address job-skills mismatch and unemployment in the country.

The budget requirement for the Tulong Trabaho Act, according to TESDA, amounts to P1.5 billion.

Bagong Henerasyon party-list Rep. Bernadette Herrera-Dy, one of the authors of the Tulong Trabaho Act, urged her colleagues to ensure that such amount will be given to TESDA.

"That’s clearly a violation of the law because it’s very clear that there has to be appropriation signed by the president," she said.

"So I want to put that on record that the budget for the Tulong Trabaho Act must be put in TESDA so they can implement the law that we just passed and signed by the president last February 22," she added. — MDM, GMA News