ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro is not giving Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio a pass as she continues to question her management of the Department of Education (DepEd), and how she stashed away laptops, books and classroom furniture in warehouses.
Castro was surprised to learn that Sara failed to check on the status of the DepEd computerization program when she took over the department in 2022. In that year, Sara sought to secure an extra P100-billion for the DepEd budget to enable her to solve all the problems that hobble the department. She’s not a good sleuth as thousands of laptops, books and classroom furniture gathered dust in warehouses, unused and deteriorating since 2022.
Last year, Batangas Rep. Jinky Luistro and Castro confirmed that the DepEd spent only P2.75 billion out of the P11 billion allocated for the computerization program, a woeful 25% accomplishment rate. However, Sara hastily spent P112.5-million of DepEd’s confidential intelligence fund (CIF) for 2023, for an efficiency rate of 143%, Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo (Marikina City) revealed. Sara’s expertise is really with CIFs, and not with the ordinary, humdrum and boring programs and projects implemented by the DepEd.
It is appalling that Sara did not check on the DepEd’s logistics and never found out that such significant teaching requirements as laptops and books, as well as chairs and desks, were squirreled away in bodegas and deteriorating. Unused laptops depreciate at a rate of 5% monthly, IT experts warn. With Castro getting under Sara’s skin, the vice president lashed out at the lawmaker, charging that she is not only crucifying her but also “conspiring” to “destroy” the Dutertes. Her latest creation is the Makabayan Coalition-Romualdez-Marcos plot to besmirch her reputation.
Castro may well laugh at the Sara shtick. It was Sara who cadged P221.424 million from the Office of the President (OP) since she had no CIF in 2022 but Malacanang said the money given to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) came from the Contingent Fund (CF), which makes Sara accountable. It was Sara who had the P69-million of her P73-million CIF expenditures slapped with a notice of disallowance since they were all labeled “rewards,” and covered “other products” and medicines that were never required for “surveillance” or “intelligence” collection.
Yet, shit has hit the fan, and it is raining on Sara and her allies. The non-use of billions of pesos for DepEd computerization, the stashing of 1.5 million items for DepEd, the questionable implementation of the P5.69-billion School-Based Feeding Program (SBFP), with moldy bread, food items laced with bugs and other products that were way past their expiration dates being distributed in three regions last year.
The Commission on Audit’s (COA) DepEd audit observation for 2023 showed at least 21 Schools Division Offices (SDOs) reported delays or even non-delivery of food products and pasteurized milk for the SBFP.
In the DepEd regional offices in Metro Manila, Central Luzon and in Northern Mindanao, COA found there were either unsanitary packaging, questionable expiry dates, or pests and molds on the bread meant for students. At the DepEd office in Quezon City, root crops and fruits were “not individually packed in cling wrap.” At least five food items purchased and distributed under the program were smaller than their prescribed serving sizes.
However, Sara thinks that all the allegations levelled at her are fabricated and designed to destroy the Duterte political dynasty. She and her kin are lily-white and only have the best interest of the people at heart. Thus, Sara projects and magically becomes Tita Pusit, or Princess Fiona, pouncing on Castro, Luistro, and Quimbo as her political assassins. She continues in her mudslinging, this time at the unholy Makabayan Coalition-Romualdez-Marcos cabal. If she can’t answer questions about the OVP budget, why can she now create a mysterious plot against her so easily. Fertile imagination is free, but negative pregnant is bad for her case.
