Press Release - Transcript of Senator Pia Cayetano's statements Budget hearing of DepEd and attached agencies

September 10, 2024

Opening statement

Welcome everyone to the Sub-Committee hearing on the Committee Finance.

Welcome, Secretary Sonny Angara. It is the first time he is not my boss. I usually welcome him as the Chairman of the Committee on Finance for the last five years. Now, he will be the person grilled by his two favorite senators, Nancy and me. And welcome to all the heads of attached agencies, the usecs., officials, and staff.

On the agenda today are the proposed budgets under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP) of the DepEd and its attached agencies.

Just for everyone's information, this is DepEd (Office of the Secretary), with a budget of Php 745,834,933; National Academy of Sports with a budget of Php 253,396,000; National Book Development Board with a budget of Php 146,406,000; National Council for Children's Television with a budget of Php 65,593,000; National Museum of the Philippines, Php 1,326,553,000; Philippine High School for the Arts, Php 110,646,000; and Early Childhood Care And Development Council, Php 353,237,000.

As for the order of presentation, there will only be one consolidated presentation for DepEd, Office of the Secretary, and DepEd attached agencies.

So, we will finish the entire presentation before any of the senators will ask questions. Questions will be in order of appearance, so obviously, that is Sen. Nancy Binay first and whoever else comes in. Ten minutes per senator.

And I would like to inform everyone who's only attending my hearing for the first time, I recommend that you take your own mobility breaks, maybe around 2 and a half hours, I will actually suspend, but in the meantime, you are free to stand up, stretch your legs, stretch your arms, stand up, and if you need to go to the restroom, go ahead, you don't need my permission. There is only one presentation so just inform the Secretariat when you're standing up. When they serve food, you are supposed to eat the food. If you don't want it, then you can politely refuse the food, but it's meant to be a working lunch. Thankfully, Sen. Angara is very well trained in the Senate, he brought his own water container from me. The same. Syempre I had