MANILA, Philippines — The Senate and House of Representatives ratified on Wednesday the bicameral conference committee report on the corresponding Senate and House bills that prohibit the “no permit, no exam” policy in all educational institutions across the country.
The report used Senate Bill No. 1359 and House Bill No. 7584.
“The Senate and House panel unanimously agreed on this version and fully support[ed] the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations in prohibiting the no permit, no exam policies in so far as disadvantaged students are concerned,” said Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero in a plenary session on Wednesday.
To save on time, Escudero moved that the joint explanatory statement of the committee conference on the disagreeing provisions of bills be inserted into the records of the session.
His motion was approved. Later in the session, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva motioned the adoption and ratification of the report.
Having received no objections from all senators present at the hall, the report was approved, ratified, and adopted.
Escudero, when he sponsored SBN 1359 in February, called the “no permit, no exam” policy as the cruelest of fines.
“By any moral yardstick, forcing a student to forfeit an exam is the cruelest of fines. It triggers a chain of events that is sometimes life-altering for the student, for the worse, not only of denied diplomas but also of dead dreams,” Escudero said then.