THE SECOND Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) has raised concerns over a critical geographic imbalance in the country’s publishing industry, warning that it continues to delay the delivery of learning materials to millions of students despite recent administrative gains in the education sector.

The warning comes even as the Department of Education (DepEd) reported a major breakthrough in ending a decade-long gridlock in textbook procurement — a development EDCOM 2 described as the most significant progress since 2013.

In 2024 alone, DepEd delivered over 87 million textbooks and procured more than 100 new titles, a sharp increase from just 27 titles procured over the previous decade.

Through reforms such as Early Procurement Activities, the agency reduced its procurement timeline from 210 days to just 60 calendar days.

However, a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies cautioned that deeper reforms are still needed to address what it described as a broken supply chain on the ground.

The report identified so-called “publishing deserts,” noting that most northern provinces in the Visayas have no publishing-related enterprises, while the entire Mindanao island group hosts only a handful of publishers and printers.

EDCOM 2 Co-Chairperson Loren Legarda said this spatial inequality directly translates into learning disadvantages for students outside Luzon.

“We cannot allow geography to dictate a child’s access to quality education. While we commend DepEd for finally securing the textbooks, the concentration of publishing hubs in Luzon has historically left millions of learners in the Visayas and Mindanao waiting for months, sometimes years, for materials essential to their learning. We must decentralize this industry and support the growth of local publishers to ensure that every student, regardless of where they live, has a textbook on their desk on the first day of school,” Legarda said.

Under Republic Act 8047, or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act of 1995, the National Book Development Board (NBDB) was established to create conditions conducive to the development, production, and distribution of books, including the acquisition of state-of-the-art technology and machinery for publishing.

The law also abolished DepEd’s Instructional Materials Development Center, aiming to foster a robust local publishing sector.

Nearly three decades later, however, the industry remains highly concentrated.

Senate hearings revealed that in the latest DepEd bidding, only 10 publishers won all 60 lots, highlighting structural barriers that limit participation from regional players.

This limited regional capacity forces DepEd to rely on long, multi-stage logistics chains, with textbooks crossing two to four islands before reaching remote schools — a process vulnerable to weather disruptions and port congestion. A 2024 study commissioned by EDCOM 2, Options for Improving DepEd Procurement for Textbooks, TVL Resources, and Assessment Services by Malaluan and Maribojoc, found that delivery timelines can stretch from 10 months to as long as 14 months.

EDCOM 2 Executive Director Dr. Karol Mark Yee stressed the urgency of fully implementing the intent of RA 8047.

He urged the NBDB to work closely with DepEd to prioritize learner needs, fix book supply chains, and support quality local publishers across all regions.

As part of its National Education Plan, EDCOM 2 aims to achieve and sustain a 1:1 textbook-to-student ratio for all elementary learners — a key component in strengthening functional literacy.

The plan targets 100 percent textbook coverage for the projected 14.7 million elementary learners by 2028, with the standard to be maintained through 2031 and 2035, alongside regular updates under DepEd’s five-year revision cycle.