CHEd refutes ‘anti-Filipino’ tag

MANILA, Philippines – The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) on Wednesday underscored that it is not “anti-Filipino”  after the Supreme Court (SC) affirmed the removal of Filipino, Panitikan and the Constitution from the collegiate curriculum.

The SC also denied the motion for reconsideration filed by the Alyansa ng Mga Tagapagtanggol ng Wikang Filipino to stop the implementation of Commission on Higher Education Memorandum Order No. 20, series of 2013 (CMO No. 20), which delisted the following subjects from the General Education Curriculum for the tertiary level.

READ: SC upholds K-to-12 program with finality

“The accusation of critics that CHEd is anti-Filipino is wrong,” CHEd chairman Prospero De Vera said in a statement.

“The Commission believes in the fundamental role played by language in education.”

“To be properly cultivated, Filipino cannot merely be taught as a subject, but must be used in oral and written forms, across academic domains,” De Vera added.

De Vera said that the issue regarding the removal of subjects “has been debated for too long,” adding that Ched “calls on all sectors to respect and abide by the SC decision so that the revised curriculum for various degree programs can now be fully implemented with dispatch by the close to 2,000 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) nationwide,”

He likewise lauded the SC’s “decisive and timely” resolution to junk the motion for reconsideration to stop the implementation of CMO 20.

De Vera said that the SC decision showed that CHEd did not abolish Filipino and Panitikan in the General Education Curriculum.

Instead, such subjects were transferred to Senior High School “since these are important building blocks in the preparation of senior high students to be university-ready when they graduate.”

De Vera called on all  HEIs to exercise their academic freedom “to include innovative reforms in their various curricula that may include language proficiency not just in Filipino but also other Philippine languages such as Ilocano, Waray, Cebuano, Ilonggo, Pangasinan, Bicolano, and Asian languages that will make graduates regionally and globally competitive.”  (Editor: Gilbert S. Gaviola)