Sen. Win Gatchalian (Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau)
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian couldn’t hide his disappointment after learning on Tuesday that the non-implementation of the law on services for learners with disabilities is due to the Department of Education’s (DepEd) failure to immediately issue the measure’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR).
Gatchalian, chairperson of the Senate’s panel on basic education, voiced his concern at the chamber’s hearing on the implementation of RA 11650, otherwise known as the Act Instituting a Policy of Inclusion and Services for Learners with Disabilities in Support of Inclusive Education.
“It’s quite disappointing that it took two years to craft the IRR and after crafting the IRR, six months thereafter there’s no publication yet. So in other words, some of the provisions of the law cannot be implemented because IRR will spell out the details,” he told DepEd officials.
Leila Areola, director IV of DepEd’s Bureau of Learning Delivery, said they were told that the IRR was scheduled to be published on December 2, 2024.
This did not sit well with Gatchalian, who maintained that even if the IRR gets published now, it will still take 30 days before it comes into effect.
“My point of the matter is by the time we fully implement this law, it’s almost five years,” he said.
“Because it took us two years to draft the law, it took you two years to draft the IRR, and then another six months to publish it and fully operate it. So it’s almost four and a half to five years; that should not be the case, that’s why we enact this law because we find it important and necessary but it’s up to the department to operationalize it. But this is purely engulfed in the bureaucratic process, I don’t think it’s going to be complicated to publish it,” he added.
Gatchalian then urged DepEd officials to coordinate with Education Secretary Sonny Angara, “already publish the IRR, and push to effect items in the law that can be implemented.”
“Because we owe it to the parents of learners with disabilities, we owe it to the groups who participated. Of course we owe it to our learners with disabilities — that’s the whole point of enacting this law,” he said.
READ: Zero budget for special education in 2023 makes SPED law ‘meaningless’