The Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines has reiterated its full support to Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s pledge to make education the top priority of his administration for the remainder of his term.

“We are fully behind Pres. Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., in his commitment to focus on education until the end of his term. As ever, we local government units will do our best to become effective partners in the effort to address the ongoing education crisis,” ULAP president and Quirino governor Dax Cua said.

President Marcos made his pledge during the ceremonial signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between the Department of Education and LGUs to fast-track classroom construction in the country.

Under the MOA, the government has allocated PhP9.6 billion for the first phase of classroom construction, with a target of 4,000 new classrooms nationwide – including 1,200 classrooms built by provincial governments and 2,800 prefabricated classrooms procured by DepEd.

“The challenges that hound our education sector are immense. But now we have the opportunity to correct at least part of those problems to help our students learn in a better environment,” President Marcos said during the ceremony.

Cua highlighted the need for LGUs to step up in their new role in classroom construction.

“With a backlog of 145,000 classrooms, we LGUs cannot relax. Kailangan triple effort ang lahat para mapunan ang pangangailangan sa mga classroom at makatulong sa pagtugon sa krisis sa edukasyon,” said the governor.

He also expressed his support for the DepEd’s plans to explore public-private partnership schemes to further reduce the classroom backlog.

The governor also reiterated his call to his fellow local leaders to use their budgets to introduce needed interventions on education in their localities.