SC halts removal of Filipino from college curriculum
MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order against the higher education authorities' decision to remove mandatory Filipino subjects from the new college curriculum.
Commission on Higher Education (CHED) memorandum 20 series of 2013 drops Filipino subjects from the General Education Curriculum (GEC) and limits its teaching to Filipino majors and Education in Filipino majors.
A group of Filipino subject professors, headed by National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera, earlier filed a petition against the CHED memo.
READ: Dropping of Filipino in college irks educators
The petitioners argued that around 10,000 full-time and 20,000 part-time professors will lose their jobs once Filipino subjects are removed from the college curriculum by 2016.
An organization promoting the use of Filipino, the Pambansang Samahan sa Linggwistika at Literaturang Filipino, also started an online petition against the scrapping of the Filipino subject in the GEC.
According to the group, the CHED memo violates Article XIV, Section 6 of the 1987 Constitution which promotes the Filipino language.
CHED justified the removal of the subject, noting that the Filipino subject will be covered in Grades 11 and 12 under the new K-12 curriculum.
The SC's TRO against the CHED memo is indefinite and does not have any duration. The CHED was given a period of 10 days from receipt of notice to file its comment.
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