The Department of Education (DepEd) is pushing for a PHP40-million budget for the Negros Island Region (NIR) next year.
In a press conference here Sunday, Undersecretary Fatima Lipp Panontongan said they are making sure the DepEd-NIR will have its own dedicated budget after it has transitioned to a new region.
“We have already submitted an amendment to the House of Representatives to make sure that there is a dedicated budget for NIR to cover salaries, personnel services, school maintenance, and other operating expenses and capital outlay,” she said.
Panontongan said DepEd-NIR was still in the process of transitioning at the time the 2025 budget was being finalized.
During the transition period following the creation of NIR in mid-2024, many agencies were operating on budgets from the previous regions to which they belonged.
The NIR comprises the provinces of Negros Occidental, formerly attached to Western Visayas, and Negros Oriental and Siquijor, which were then part of Central Visayas.
Panontongan said the DepEd-NIR budget will be about the same as the DepEd offices in Central and Western Visayas.
The DepEd official, representing Education Secretary Sonny Angara, was guest speaker at the National Teachers’ Month-Visayas leg celebration.
Some 2,000 DepEd officials, teachers, and staff from Central, Western and Eastern Visayas, and NIR attended the celebration.
Angara, in a video message played during the event, assured the teachers of full support to enable them to fully carry out their roles and responsibilities as public mentors.
“We will do everything we can for you to make life easier to enable you to perform your true mission, your true calling, which is to teach and to impart knowledge to our learners,” he said.
In response to the directive of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., Angara said an unprecedented number of teachers and school heads will be promoted.
The 18-percent increase in the agency’s budget will mostly go to personnel services and the hiring of administrative officers and project development officers to assist the teachers, he added. (PNA)
