Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday warned that education reform will fail unless the government confronts the underfunding of the K to12 program, calling it the “elephant in the room” in efforts to fix the country’s education system.
Speaking at the presentation of the Year 3 Final Report of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) on January 27, 2026, Cayetano said the government must either fully fund K to 12 or seriously consider reducing it by one or two years, warning that keeping an underfunded program will continue to drain limited resources.
“Unless we address K to 12, either we fully fund it or we take out one or two years, we’ll never get to where we want in education. It will be just like corruption. You keep trying to fill the bucket, pero butas-butas siya,” he said.
A former co-chairperson of EDCOM and long-time champion of education, Cayetano acknowledged that Congress missed a major opportunity to prioritize education funding, noting that nearly P500 billion removed from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) budget could have been redirected to education.
“We had the opportunity now, but we did not take it. If you expect na next year or next administration, ifu-fully fund y’ung K to 12, hindi mangyayari,” he said.
EDCOM II’s findings, released after three years of national assessment and research, highlighted deep structural problems in the education system.
Its Year 1 report exposed missing textbooks, ineffective subsidies, and overlapping agency mandates, while the Year 2 report warned that many Filipino learners were already several years behind by Grade 3 due to stunting, weak early childhood education, and poor literacy.
It also flagged that more than 50 percent of public schools still lack principals, alongside frequent class suspensions that worsen learning loss.
Cayetano said the findings also dispel the notion that prioritizing education means neglecting other sectors, stressing that strong education foundations are key to better governance and curbing corruption.
He appealed for the creation of a Third Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 3) through his filed Senate Bill No. 103.
The proposal seeks to give the heads of the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) full commissioner status to ensure continuous coordination and alignment across the education sector.
“They’ve already proven themselves with these reports and it really made me understand the problems in education and how to try to fix it,” Cayetano said.
