MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Education (DepEd) will conduct an investigation into the Commission on Audit’s (COA) findings that P25 million worth of grade school text books were left undistributed. 

The DepEd said it will look into possible legal action on the 820,682 grade school learning materials found to have been damaged due to defective gutters and downspout inside the warehouse of private contractor Lexicon Press, Inc.

DepEd and COA agreed to this after a meeting in June 2018.

State auditors previously said the transaction between the DepEd and Lexicon was done ahead of a planned expansion of the education department’s learning resources warehouse that could’ve accommodated 2.44 million books.

In a statement, the DepEd’s Bureau of Learning Resources (BLR) said it agreed on the storage of the books with Lexicon as the department’s biddings for its forwarding services and the renovation of its warehouse in Taguig City had failed several times. It added the text books were stored by Lexicon with no additional cost to the government. 

The DepEd also said it received Lexicon’s report on the damaged materials in February 2017 and that it sent officials to validate findings but “it had neither information nor control over Lexicon’s decision to dispose of the damaged LMs [learning materials].”

The DepEd said no less than the office of Education Secretary Leonor Briones will validate findings of COA and BLR in reviewing legal action.

Apart from this, COA also said it discovered more than 2.7 million copies of undistributed books worth between P56.75 million and P105 million. – Rappler.com