Downgrading Filipino and Panitikan as optional subjects is a sound decision

Last Saturday, the Supreme Court released its en banc decision promulgated last October 9 to affirm the landmark education reform of the current century, the RA 10533 (Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum Act) or known as the K-12 program. The implementation of K to 12 program has created divisions among those working in the academia and the implementation of the program itself was certainly in haste, in order to cope up with the requirements of the ASEAN Integration where all ASEAN members should have the same basic education length of at least 12 years in which the Philippines hadn’t complied until the adoption of K to 12 program.

The en banc ruling also included the petition coming from several Filipino and Panitikan teachers coming from the tertiary level who decried CHED’s order of then chairwoman Patricia Lichuanan to remove Filipino and Panitikan from core subjects in every tertiary institution’s curriculum. The argument coming from those who decried CHED’s order in 2012 is that Filipino tertiary graduates will lose their grasp at learning what they consider “our own” culture, by removing Filipino and Panitikan from its mandatory core status.

This kind of argument is simply absurd because the current status quo of Philippine educational system has Filipino or Tagalog (more appropriate to say linguistically) as the core part of the curriculum and every Filipino child from ages five to 18, public or private, sectarian or secular, has had to study Filipino grammar and literature until they graduate from the basic education phase.

These petitioners should better examine their kind of pedagogical methods, in order to entice everyone to learn what they consider “Filipino” language and literature. Another argument from these petitioners is that there will be at least 10,000 Filipino and Panitikan teachers will lose their lucrative jobs at the tertiary level and have to be demoted to the senior high. This kind of argument is what people (including the Supreme Court justices) have perceived them having ulterior selfish agenda to keep their jobs and keep those who want to teach in the tertiary level under the new curriculum out. If we believe in the second argument, then the SC should give their final ruling against them and not let our education system be stuck in the dinosaur age, just because certain “groups” like these Filipino and Panitikan teachers will lose their jobs.

Joseph Solis Alcayde