Housecleaning for Deped
IT’S at once funny and not. Our public schools are tied from fully helping malnourished pupils with a feeding program because the Department of Education
(Deped) can’t buy vegetables from lowly vendors who couldn’t issue official receipts for liquidation purposes, as required by law. And since the supplies have to be bought from bigger suppliers at a higher price, the Deped can’t fully implement the project because it lacked the budget. Philippine bureaucracy really has a raw talent for ironies.
Funny, indeed, except that it ceases to be so when one realizes that this bureaucratic intricacies become the very instruments that conceal corruption at the Deped, once and probably still is among the top most corrupt government offices in the country.
For instance, common knowledge about teacher hiring at the Deped is that a sure-fire way for an applicant to get the job is a strong backing by a politician or top official. In the long queue of hopefuls, the weight of an education portfolio matters less compared to a recommendation letter from the beloved mayor or congressman or governor. A research
conducted a decade ago said one of the biggest stumbling blocks to professionalizing government bureaucracy is the pervasive and deeply-entrenched patronage politics in the hiring of workers. The Deped is one of those where the practice was in its most rampant.
The situation persists to this day. A quick audit in the Deped’s hiring practices still show heavy subjectivity despite mechanisms that supposedly ensure the objective rating of applicants. Every now and then, a number of Deped officials get sued for corruption—be they over overpriced educational materials, infrastructure, among others.
This public perception on the Deped as being one of the institutions that are in dire need of major housecleaning serves as one of the hurdles that it had to deal with. This soiled image backfires on teachers who are, to this day, still hoisting their begging bowl for the promised pay hike.
The Philippine National Police had been intense in its “internal cleansing” works, while our policemen get the raise that was promised to them. The Deped can take the cue./sscebu