Nov. 28, 2014, 10:11 a.m. – THE
COMMISSION on Higher Education (CHEd) has stood by its decision to remove
Filipino courses in tertiary education.
In an official statement released Thursday, CHEd
proposed to use Filipino as a medium in teaching general education subjects
instead.
“Filipino cannot merely be taught as a subject, but
must be used in oral and written forms,” according to the statement signed by
CHEd Chairperson Patricia Licuanan. “[T]he Commission shall support such aims
by providing incentives to Higher Education Institutions (HEI) that opt to use
Filipino in the general education courses or offer several sections of a given
course in Filipino.”
According to the statement, CHEd will also discuss
with the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino the development of a long-term plan to
boost Filipino proficiency among tertiary students.
But the Alyansa ng Mga Tagapagtanggol ng Wikang
Filipino (Tanggol Wika), an alliance of faculty members from more than 70 HEIs
opposing the removal of Filipino courses in college, said CHEd’s statement was
“traitorous and [a] stubborn refusal” to the petition it raised four months
ago.
“CHEd is technically killing Filipino Departments in
all colleges and universities by refusing to add Filipino subjects in the new
[curriculum], while at the same time paying lip service to the optional use of
Filipino as a medium of instruction,” Tanggol Wika said in its official
statement.
Subjects like Filipino, General Psychology, and Basic
Economics will be removed, while “remedial courses” such as English,
Literature, Math, Natural Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences will be
transferred to Grades 11 and 12, according to CHEd Memorandum Order (CMO) 20
series of 2013 or the “General Education Curriculum (GEC): Holistic Understandings,
Intellectual and Civic Competencies.”
CMO 20, which will be fully implemented in 2018, will
cut the current 63-unit GEC to just 36 units. J. P. Villanueva
