The Philippines’ Commission on Higher Education (CHED) today denied accusations that it is anti-Filipino despite pushing for the removal of Filipino and Philippine Literature subjects from the general education curriculum of tertiary schools, a controversial decision recently upheld by the Supreme Court (SC).
In a statement posted on their Facebook page today, the CHED said that the teaching of Filipino was merely transferred to the senior high school levels, which were designed to prepare students for college. It added that for Filipino to be cultivated, it should also be taught beyond the classroom.
“The accusation of critics that CHED is anti-Filipino is wrong. 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,” said J. Prospero de Vera III, CHED’s chairman.
De Vera urged everybody concerned to abide by the SC’s decision, and added that the issue has “been debated for too long.” The CHED estimated that there will be 2,000 higher education institutions in the Philippines which have to comply with the SC’s decision.
In a resolution dated March 5, the SC said that it has “denied with finality” the motions for reconsideration filed by several petitioners seeking to stop the CHED from implementing Memorandum Order (CMO) Number 20, series of 2013, which removes Filipino from tertiary schools’ general education curriculum.
The SC’s resolution said that they would no longer entertain any additional pleadings or motion in connection to the case. Prior to that, in October, the SC already ruled that the memo from the CHED was valid.
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The CHED said that despite their own memorandum, tertiary schools can still teach Philippine languages in their curricula.
These schools can “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.”
The CHED also said they will provide scholarships to Filipino and Philippine Literature teachers who may lose their jobs due to its memo.
On Sunday, Tanggol Wika, the organization that filed the motion for reconsideration, vowed that they would still file another petition to stop the CHED from implementing its memo. The group claims that the 1987 Philippine constitution mandates that Filipino should be taught in all educational levels.
The group’s convenor David Michael San Juan said in Filipino on a Facebook video: “If we failed to convince the Supreme Court in our first motion for reconsideration, we will push to file a second motion for reconsideration.”
