DEPED, Pasig City — More than ₱50 million of taxpayers' money was saved when the Department of Education (DepEd) stopped the release of vouchers meant for senior high school students (SHS) in 12 private schools who were found to be non-existent, according to education secretary Edgardo 'Sonny' Angara.

In exact figures, Angara revealed that the “potential defraudment” amounted to a whopping ₱52,571,500 for the DepEd's SHS voucher program covering school year 2023-2024 during the tenure of Vice President 'Inday' Sara Duterte-Carpio as the country’s education minister.

“Upon validation of the questionable claims from these 12 schools, we did not process nor release any payments and investigated the schools,” Angara disclosed.

The education chief, however, declined to identify the erring schools while investigation is ongoing, but noted that they are located in Metro Manila and the regions of Davao, Ilocos, Central Luzon, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon provinces) Eastern Visayas and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“To protect the integrity of the investigation, we will not be disclosing the specific areas and names of the schools,” Angara explained while citing that the flagged schools and their officials would be held accountable and could be removed from the voucher program.

"The school administration officials can face criminal charges, including falsification and perjury, for signing the documents under oath. Attempting to defraud the Philippine government through falsification and misrepresentation is a serious criminal offense, one that our lawyers are prepared to take action on,” he added.

To prevent these from happening again, DepEd announced that it is planning to impose new safeguards in validating claims for SHS vouchers in order to countrr prevent similar attempts in the future. It also stressed the need for a more advanced authentication process to detect erroneous claims.

As early as in 2015, DepEd had rolled out the voucher system to make SHS education more accessible to students from low-income families as well as minimize overcrowding in public schools as grantees may enroll in private institutions using the vouchers. The value of each voucher ranges from ₱14,000 to ₱22,500, depending on the student’s location.