Video by Noy Morcoso

Another petition has been filed before the Supreme Court against the government’s “ambitious” K–12 program, a national 12-year basic education program, for violation of the Constitution and seeing the adverse effects of the implementation.

In a 37-page petition filed Wednesday, Senator Antonio “Sonny” F. Trillanes IV, together with Magdalo Party-list Representatives Gary Alejano and Francis Ashley Acedillo urged the high court to declare as unconstitutional Republic Act 10533 or the K-12 Law.

While the case is still pending, the lawmakers told the high court to issue a restraining order against its implementation.

Petitioners said the law failed to comply with the 1987 Constitution because the program was implemented without consulting the people that will be affected by the new 12-year basic education program.

The government, according to petitioners implemented the program based only on “few isolated academic papers of private individuals” and on the “belief that it would be good for the country.”

Petitioners said among the potential adverse effects of K-12 are the mass termination of around 85,000 college workers because there would be no incoming college freshmen for at least two years.

Senator Antonio Traillanes IV (center), Magdalo Representatives Gary Alejano and Francis Ashley Acedillo filed a petition with the Supreme Court calling for the suspension of K to 12 law on Wednesday May 6, 2015. NOY MORCOSO/INQUIRER.net

Petitioners added there is also no attempt to study or evaluate the capacity of the poor and middle-class families to afford an additional two-year curriculum.

“Undoubtedly, many of these families and the students themselves, majority of whom live below the poverty threshold and are barely able to make both ends meet, would be compelled to forego these additional years of schooling and just dropout of school…If the respondents [Education Secretary Armin] Luistro and Department of Education think that by just making Senior High School free and available, all high school students will continue in their studies and avail of the same, their expectations is not grounded on reality,” the petition stated.

Citing a paper from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), the petitioners said out of 100 students who enter grade one (1), only 66 will complete elementary education, 42 will finish high school and 14 will earn college degrees.

By applying the current drop-out rate, with the additional two years of Senior High School, drop-out rates will increase from 6.8 percent to 27 percent.

Petitioners also accused the DepEd of misleading the public when it posted in its website that it has addressed all shortages in classrooms, books, teachers, chairs to justify implementation of RA 10533.

“Respondent DepEd’s claim of ‘No Shortages’ by end of 2013 on the basis of which it is now attempting to justify the implementation of its K-12 Program under RA 10533 is far from truth,” petitioners said.

To fully implement the program, petitioners said the government need P150-billion to be able to address the shortages and reduce the gap between students-classroom ratio.

“DepEd believes that we need to adopt a 12-year basic education curriculum to keep up with our neighbors and the rest of the globe, hence we need the K-12 program…The problem with this line of thinking is that it totally disregards the basic problems which we have and the continuing decline of quality of Philippine education.”

“The K-12 Program adopted under RA10533 is an elitists solution because it fails to consider how the most vulnerable members of Philippine society, i.e. the poor and the working class, will be able to cope with this proposed solution,” the petitioners stated.

This is the third petition filed against K-12. The first petition was filed by the Council of Teachers and Staff of Colleges and Universities of the Philippines (CoTeSCUP), Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisang Progresibong mga Manggagawa (Sentro), Federation of Free Workers (FFW), National Confederation of Labor (NCL), among others who also sought to nullify RA 10533.

The second petition sought to stop the Commission on Higher Education from implementing its order removing mandatory Filipino subjects from the new college curriculum which is part of the overall program of the government under the K to 12 program. TVJ

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