COA finds ‘unverifiable’ beneficiaries in DepEd’s SHS voucher program

DEPED. The Department of Education headquarters in Pasig City.

Angie de Silva/Rappler

The dozens of unverifiable beneficiaries of the senior high school voucher program resulted in an overpayment of P938,000, according to state auditors

AT A GLANCE

• The Commission on Audit identified 58 unverifiable beneficiaries of the Department of Education's senior high school voucher program, leading to an overpayment of P938,000 for the school year 2025-2026.
• The unverifiable beneficiaries included students who dropped out, transferred, were not enrolled, deceased, or absent during validation, highlighting deficiencies in beneficiary validation and monitoring by the DepEd.
• In response to the findings, the DepEd has tightened its validation and accountability measures and has begun recovering overpayments.

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MANILA, Philippines – There were 58 “unverifiable” beneficiaries of the Department of Education‘s (DepEd) senior high school (SHS) voucher program, which resulted in an overpayment of P938,000 in school year (SY) 2025-2026, the Commission on Audit (COA) found. 

According to COA’s compliance audit on the existence and eligibility of voucher beneficiaries, the flagged unvalidated beneficiaries were: 

• 32 students who had officially or unofficially dropped out
• 12 who transferred to other schools
• 11 who were not enrolled in the second semester
• 2 who were reported deceased
• 1 who was absent during validation with no records available

The overpayment of P938,000, which was for 53 out of the 58 unverified beneficiaries, had already been released to their respective schools, COA said in its 2025 annual audit report on the DepEd released last September 23.

Four beneficiaries were excluded from billing statements prior to payment as of February, while the subsidy for one beneficiary had not yet been released as of March. 

Moreover, state auditors found five beneficiaries who were “misclassified under incorrect voucher categories,” resulting in an overpayment of P14,710.

Other deficiencies seen were incomplete or improperly maintained supporting documents and inadequate monitoring by the DepEd and the Private Education Assistance Committee, which helps in implementing the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GATSPE).

“These lapses expose the program to the risk of erroneous billing and overpayment, compromise the reliability of beneficiary validation, and may result in the disbursement of funds to ineligible beneficiaries, contrary to the objective of providing financial assistance exclusively to qualified learners,” COA said.

The SHS voucher program is a government financial subsidy program for qualified Grades 11 and 12 students. It provides assistance in the form of vouchers ranging from P14,000 to P22,500 per year, which are paid directly to the student’s chosen private school.

COA said the program’s participating schools are responsible for encoding and updating student information.

“The status of the concerned [voucher program beneficiaries] should have been duly updated and subjected to DepEd verification to prevent potential overpayments,” the commission added.

On Tuesday, September 29, the DepEd said it had acted on the COA findings. 

“As part of its five-layer validation, DepEd, through its co-manager of the senior high school voucher program, Private Education Assistance Committee, has completed its school year 2025-2026 validation. Through this year-end validation, flagged cases are being reviewed and confirmed overpayments will be recovered,” part of the DepEd’s statement read.

The agency said it had “tightened beneficiary validation, billing, refund, and accountability measures” in the revised Expanded GATSPE guidelines released in April.

The DepEd said it will “continue to pursue accountability and the recovery of government funds where warranted.”

Issue of ‘ghost students’

The DepEd investigated 12 private schools in February 2025 over the alleged presence of ghost students in the SHS voucher program.

By March 2025, the agency recovered P65 million from the voucher program amid irregularities, with 38 private schools fully refunding the government.

In July 2026, the DepEd said a regional trial court had sentenced an individual to up to 14 years in prison for attempting to defraud the government program by submitting falsified documents. Case details were not provided.

In the same 2025 annual audit report, COA also flagged deficiencies in monitoring the implementation of the SHS voucher program. 

As of October 2025, there were 172,909 billed beneficiaries in participating private senior high schools nationwide, excluding the Bangsamoro region and the Negros Island Region, according to COA.

State auditors found the unverifiable beneficiaries from a sample population of 5,507 in SY 2025-2026. Of the number, 995 beneficiaries came from the National Capital Region, while the rest were from other regions, covering 571 senior high schools participating in the voucher program. – Rappler.com