Republic of the Philippines 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Batasan Hills, Quezon City 
NINETEENTH CONGRESS 
First Regular Session 
HOUSE BILL No. _____ 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Introduced by  
ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. FRANCE L. CASTRO,  
GABRIELA Women’s Party Rep. ARLENE D. BROSAS,  
and KABATAAN Party-List Rep. RAOUL DANNIEL A. MANUEL 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
AN ACT 
SETTING ASIDE AT LEAST SIX PERCENT OF THE GROSS DOMESTIC 
PRODUCT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, STATE 
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES, TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND SKILLS 
DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, AND OTHER AGENCIES AND 
INSTRUMENTALITIES WITH MANDATES DIRECTLY RELATED TO 
EDUCATION, THEREBY MANDATING THE HIGHEST BUDGETARY 
PRIORITY TO EDUCATION 
EXPLANATORY NOTE 
Despite rhetoric on the Philippine government’s prioritization of education in the 
national budget, for the past decades, our public expenditure on education as percentage 
of the gross domestic product (GDP) remains below the higher limits of United Nations 
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) standards of at least 6% 
of the GDP.1  According to World Bank statistics, the Philippines’ public expenditure 
for education never breached 4.4% from 1980 to 2020,2 and generally below the global 
average on most years from 1999 to 2019.3  Hence, it is also among the worst countries 
in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of public expenditure for education.4  
1 
Reiterated in UNESCO’s Global Education Monitoring Report (2016).  This is also the typical 
benchmark for developing countries as early as the 1980s (Tilak, 2006). 
2 
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS?contextual=default&locations=PH 
3 
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS?contextual=default&locations=1W-
PH 
4 
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS?contextual=region&locations=PH 
July 11, 2022
2:47 pm
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It is in this context that the Programme for International Student Assessment 
(PISA) 2018 Country Note for the Philippines reveals that the country’s dismal PISA 
results are partly because “(e)xpenditure per student in the Philippines was the lowest 
amongst all PISA-participating countries/economies—and 90% lower than the OECD 
average.” 5 Hence, PISA’s analysis emphasizes that a populous country like the 
Philippines will have to hike its public expenditures for education to have a fighting 
chance of improving its over-all quality of education.  The additional gaps in 
resources, facilities, and personnel laid bare by the pandemic,6 further highlight the need 
to drastically increase the Philippines’ education budget. 
 
 
The bigger education expenditures of Finland—which are way above and 
consistently higher than the Philippines’ spending for education from 1970 to 20207—
are also instructive. Finland is typically identified as the country with the best education 
system, ranking 1st in health & primary education, and 2nd in higher education & 
training in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index 2017-
2018; 2nd in skills (which covers education) in the Global Competitiveness Report 2019; 
and 1st in having the ability to “update education curricula and expand investment in 
the skills needed for jobs and ‘markets of tomorrow’” in the WEF Global 
Competitiveness Report 2020.8 It is clear from Finland’s experience that the basic 
element for quality education is higher public expenditures for education. 
 
 
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the Marcosian relic on automatic debt 
appropriations (Presidential Decree No. 1177, signed in 1977) remains intact.  Despite 
the historical fact that the said dictator plunged the country into a debt quagmire, Section 
31 of PD 1177 or the mandate of automatic appropriations for “principal and interest on 
public debt [and] national government guarantees of obligations which are drawn upon” 
is replicated in toto into the Administrative Code, in particular, Section 26 of Chapter 
4, Book VI on Budget Authorization.  The no-questions-asked priority for debt was thus 
implemented throughout the post-EDSA 1 administrations, thereby limiting the budget 
available for education as well as other social services. 
 
 
Under this Marcosian relic, the government automatically allots huge sums of 
money for debt payments.  In 1991, esteemed statesmen Teofisto T. Guingona, Jr. and 
Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. questioned the higher appropriation for debt service in 1990 as 
opposed to that for the Department of Education, Culture, and Sports is “inconsistent 
with the Constitution, hence, void.”9  In 1994, this was again raised with respect to the 
1994 national budget, with petitioners then arguing that automatic appropriations for 
 
5 
https://www.oecd.org/pisa/publications/PISA2018_CN_PHL.pdf  
6 
Dayagbil et al., 2021 and San Juan, 2021 
7 
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS?locations=PH-FI  
8 
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2017-2018/03CountryProfiles/Standalone2-
pagerprofiles/WEF_GCI_2017_2018_Profile_Finland.pdf, 
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf,  and 
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2020.pdf   
9 
Teofisto Guingona, Jr. and Aquilino Pimentel, Jr. v. Guillermo Carague, et al. (G.R. 94571, 
consolidated with three other petitions, April 22, 1991)  


debt servicing results in a “highest priority for debt service” rather than for education.  
The Supreme Court, however, ruled in favor of “our enormous debt” and “credit 
standing, classifying the constitutional provision as “merely directory.”10  
 
 
This bill intends to take a stand that will favor our children and youth, our 
teachers and education personnel.  With a specific legislation to implement Section 5(5) 
of Article XIV of the Constitution, it is hoped that these words will not remain empty 
exhortations but will ensure that taxpayers’ money is translated into actual 
appropriations with real-life benefits for our people.  Rather than consider it as mere 
spending, we must view it as high-yield investments on the country’s future—our 
people’s children, the next generation of Filipinos. 
 
 
Perpetually according the highest budgetary priority to debt servicing is the 
reason our teachers and education workers are overworked yet underpaid and are 
themselves in debt, why studying in public schools have never been free in reality, and 
why the quality of education is declining.  Reversing this trend may have been due 
decades ago, but it is never too late to start now.  
 
 
Immediate passage of this bill is sought. 
 
 
 
 
________________________________ 
Rep. FRANCE L. CASTRO 
ACT Teachers Party-List 
 
 
 
 
________________________________ 
Rep. ARLENE D. BROSAS 
GABRIELA Women’s Party 
 
 
________________________________ 
Rep. RAOUL DANNIEL A. MANUEL 
KABATAAN Party-List 
 
10 Philippine Constitution Association, et al., vs. Salvador Enriquez, et al. (G.R. 113105, 
consolidated with three other petitions, August 19, 1994)  


Republic of the Philippines 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Batasan Hills, Quezon City 
NINETEENTH CONGRESS 
First Regular Session 
HOUSE BILL No. _____ 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Introduced by  
ACT Teachers Party-List Rep. FRANCE L. CASTRO,  
GABRIELA Women’s Party Rep. ARLENE D. BROSAS,  
and KABATAAN Party-List Rep. RAOUL DANNIEL A. MANUEL 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
AN ACT 
SETTING ASIDE AT LEAST SIX PERCENT OF THE GROSS DOMESTIC 
PRODUCT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, STATE 
UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES, TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND SKILLS 
DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, AND OTHER AGENCIES AND 
INSTRUMENTALITIES WITH MANDATES DIRECTLY RELATED TO 
EDUCATION, THEREBY MANDATING THE HIGHEST BUDGETARY 
PRIORITY TO EDUCATION 
Be it enacted by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Philippines 
assembled. 
SECTION 1. Short Title.  This Act shall be known as the “Education as Priority in 
the National Appropriations Act (EDNA Act).” 
SEC. 2. Declaration of State Policy. The policy of the State to assign the highest 
budgetary priority to education—enshrined in Section 5(5) of Article XIV—is hereby 
recognized, affirmed, and implemented. 
SEC. 3. Coverage. This Act shall cover all annual national appropriations laws to be 
henceforth prepared, legislated, and executed. 
SEC. 4. Minimum National Budget for Education. Annual national appropriations for 
the Department of Education, state universities and colleges, Technical Education and 
Skills Development Authority, and other agencies and instrumentalities having 
mandates directly related to education shall be at least equivalent to six (6) percent of 
the gross domestic product (GDP), as per UNESCO standards. 
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For this purpose, the Development Budget Coordinating Committee is 
henceforth tasked to include in the national expenditure program the country’s GDP for 
the past four years, the current fiscal year, the fiscal year for which the annual 
appropriations act is being formulated, and four-year projections thereof. 
 
SEC. 5. Prohibition against Other Automatic Appropriations.  Upon this law’s 
effectivity, automatic appropriations for principal and interest on public debt and 
national government guarantees of obligations which are drawn upon are hereby 
prohibited. 
 
SEC. 6. Prohibition against Circumvention.  Circumvention of this Act through the 
classification of expenditure in non-education agencies as education expenditure, or 
expenditure supposedly for education-related items, shall be prohibited 
 
SEC. 7. Protection against Sudden Fall of the GDP.  Subject to the implementing rules 
and regulations of this Act, the education budget shall be protected against the sudden 
fall of the GDP, in such a way that the education budget will still be increased or at least 
retained for at most, a year, rather than decreased. 
 
SEC. 8. Implementing Rules and Regulations.  The Department of Finance and the 
Department of Budget and Management, in consultation with the Department of 
Education, state universities and colleges, Technical Education and Skills Development 
Authority, and other agencies and instrumentalities mentioned in Section 4 of this Act, 
shall promulgate the rules and regulations necessary to implement this Act not later than 
ninety (90) days from its effectivity. 
 
SEC. 9. Separability Clause.  In case any provision in this Act shall be declared invalid, 
illegal or unenforceable, the validity, legality and enforceability of the remaining 
provisions shall not in any way be affected or impaired. 
 
SEC. 10. Repealing Clause.  All laws, decrees, executive orders, proclamations, rules 
and regulations, and other issuances, or parts thereof which are inconsistent with the 
provisions of this Act, are hereby repealed or modified accordingly. 
 
SEC. 11. Effectivity Clause.  This Act shall take effect upon its publication in at least 
two (2) national newspapers of general circulation. 
 
 
Approved,