ORTIGAS, Pasig City — The backlash is now being felt from the orders of United States president Donald Trump to freeze foreign aid as five projects of the Department of Education (DepEd) is adversely affected by the stoppage of financial assistance being provide by Washington to several countries that include the Philippines.

As a consequence, DepEd will have to look for ways to continue the said projects erdtwhile funded by the US government through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

The projects, with a total cost of US$94.02 million (about P5 billion), that will be affected include DepEd’s five-point agenda addressing major issues in the country’s education system.

According to assistant education secretary for strategic management Roger Masapol, "this means that all support provided by our partners, including the USAID, was already mapped out in our priorities and this also means that putting a hold on these programs would have an effect on our reform process in the DepEd.”
Despite this, though, Masapol disclosed that DepEd will be pushing to continue funding by searching for funds under DepEd’s budget to cover the gap.

“We know how important the outputs of these US-supported programs are, that is why in the next three months we will mitigate (the aid freeze’s impact on) the DepEd to continue these efforts,” he stressed.

The assistant education secretary spelled out the five projects which must be funded as the ABC+, which aims to provide access to quality reading materials for early literacy development; Opportunity 2.0, which will provide US government support for the alternative learning system; Gabay program specific for learners with disabilities; Improving Learning Outcomes for the Philippines (ILO-PH), which will help DepEd in designing, implementing and evaluating education programs from early childhood to workforce development; and Urban Connect, a joint gender development program.