SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian believes that the Department of Education can have confidential funds to solve cases of child abuse, sexual harassment, and other crimes hounding the education sector.

“If they think the confidential funds are important to solve issues, for example, sexual harassment issues, issues on let’s say child abuse, issues on crime-related activities within the school perimeter, then kailangan,” the chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education said.

He pointed out that DepEd manages 90 percent of the country’s student population with around 23 million students.

“May mga problema talaga ang schools natin at ang communities natin. So kung kailangan nila ng tools to solve crimes through confidential funds, then nakikita ko rational naman ‘yun,” he said.

The senator said that there are safeguards in the use of such funds such as those laid down by the Commission on Audit, the Office of the President and Congress.

Confidential funds can be granted to law enforcement agencies and other government agencies, Gatchalian said.