Co-sponsorship Speech of Senator Legarda Classroom-Building Acceleration Program (CAP) Act

Mr. President, distinguished colleagues:

I hesitate to sound repetitive, yet the truth bears repeating: from my first term in 1998 until today, the classroom shortage has persisted as one of the most stubborn obstacles in our public education system. Year after year, administration after administration, this deficit has weighed heavily on our learners and teachers. And today, the DepEd estimates the gap at 147,347 classrooms nationwide.

I rise to co-sponsor the proposed Classroom-Building Acceleration Program Act, a measure that seeks to address this long-standing challenge.

The leadership of Secretary Sonny Angara at DepEd deserves recognition. Barely two months into office, he pursued scalable initiatives, harnessed public-private partnerships, and instituted reforms to make infrastructure delivery more efficient and inclusive. Yet, as with all urgent national undertakings, these efforts must be sustained and reinforced.

The CAP Act empowers DepEd to authorize eligible local governments and civil society groups to build classrooms, while ensuring that the process is accelerated, transparent, accountable, and responsive to community needs.

As Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Higher, Technical, and Vocational Education, I must emphasize the inextricable link between basic education and higher learning. A student’s ability to think critically, comprehend deeply, and create with confidence is not formed once they step into colleges, universities, or technical institutions. It is cultivated in the earliest years, in classrooms that are safe, adequate, and conducive to learning. When those spaces are absent or deficient, we distort the education pipeline. Overcrowding and double shifts reduce learning hours; poor facilities compromise literacy and numeracy; and substandard environments erode motivation and self-esteem. These deficits accumulate. By the time students reach higher education, they carry learning gaps that erode performance in advanced courses, weaken problem-solving skills, and limit readiness for professional training. Institutions are forced to remediate rather than innovate.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply one of infrastructure delivery, but securing the integrity of our human capital formation. The Filipino people are among the most talented, innovative, and resilient in the world. Our competitiveness, workforce, and future rest on the classrooms we build today.

For these reasons, I congratulate our Chairperson for Basic Education, Senator Bam Aquino, and I wish to be made co-sponsor of this measure.

Thank you.