The Department of Education (DepEd) is far from done with purchasing laptops for public school teachers and administrative staff.
With funding of P10.68 billion in 2026, the DepEd is buying over 172,000 MacBook Neo laptops from Apple and more than 62,000 Windows-based units. These Windows-based units are Acer Swift Air 14 laptops, as announced by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The total figure for 2026 is nearly double the 140,430 laptops procured and delivered to teachers from 2022 to 2025.
The DepEd, however, will need a much bigger budget to supply laptops for all public school teachers, estimated to be at least 840,000 to 900,000 across the country.
The agency is already listing who will be prioritized for the distribution until March 2027, covering the latest batch of procured laptops.
The next question: How many laptops are expected to be secured in fresh deals next year?
In a Palace briefing on Tuesday, November 10, Education Secretary Sonny Angara could only answer: “Hopefully, mabigyan kami ng budget for this (we will be given a budget for this).”
Angara has reason to worry. In his first budget season as education secretary, he saw a P10-billion funding cut for the DepEd Computerization Program (DCP) from the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the 2025 General Appropriations Act. The agency was left with only P2.4…
