President Rodrigo Duterte welcomed the World Bank’s apology for the premature release of a report that indicated the low proficiency of Filipino students.

“Well, I would not want to begrudge World Bank. But itong mga international whatever bodies working on the problems of the world should be very careful in their statistics. It is not good to, you know, commit a wrong internationally. But good as any, we welcome their apology,” Duterte said in his weekly address to the nation on Monday night.

The World Bank expressed deep regret for “inadvertently publishing” the report before the Department of Education was given the chance to provide its inputs. The bank has taken down its report from its site.

The President said that DepEd is working on a new set of data that it will submit to the World Bank so that it can correct its figures and data inputs.

“I have no doubt the Department of Education will do everything it can to correct the misconception. I’m sure that the things we will provide to World Bank will be the true and accurate situation in the Philippines,” Duterte said.

He admitted that the country’s educational problems persisted because these are difficult to address for lack of funds.

“Sa totoo lang, mahirap lang kasi talaga tayo. We are third world country. Ang mahirap sa atin is always the constraint of money,” he said.

“Kung may pera talaga sana tayo, kung maganda lang ang ating ekonomiya, we could have improved on the governance of all departments, all facets of governance,” he added.