From Manila Times Educators Challenge Language Policy In Sc

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Educators challenge language policy in SC Educators, writers and students trooped to the Supreme Court on Friday to challenge the Arroyo administration’s language policy. They petitioned the Court to stop the Department of Education from continuing to carry out Executive Order 210 strengthening the use of English in the school system at the expense of Filipino and the other Philippine languages. The petitioners described the policy as both “unconstitutional and mistaken.” The petitioners are asking the Court to issue a writ of preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order—telling the administration to desist from carrying out EO 210 and any of its implementing regulations. They are also asking the Supreme Court to declare EO 210 and DepEd Order No. 36, S 2006 null and void, saying these are in violation of the Constitution. The educators seeking a repeal of EO 210 include Dr. Patricia Licuanan, president of Miriam College; National Artists Bienvenido Lumbera and Virgilio Almario; University of the Philippines sociologist Randolf David; Isagani R. Cruz, president of WIKA Inc.; and Efren Abueg, writer in residence at De La Salle University. They are represented by Pacifico A. Agabin, former dean of the UP College of Law. The petitioners claim that EO 210 and Department of Education Order No. 36 (which operationalizes EO 210) patently violate Article XIV of the 1987 Constitution. The Constitution declares Filipino as the national language and mandates the government “to initiate and sustain [its] use . . .as a medium of official communication and as language of instruction in the educational system.” The educators claimed that the implementation of EO 210 would emaciate the constitutional policy of propagating the use of Filipino. They cited a 1991 congressional study to refute both EO 210 and a House bill with a similar intent, written by Cebu First District Rep. Eduardo Gullas. HB 4701 on “Strengthening and Enhancing the Use of English as the Medium of

Instruction in Philippine Schools,” certified as urgent by President Arroyo, passed the House but was not acted on by the Senate in the Thirteenth Congress. The Gullas bill goes against the findings of a Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom) in 1991. The commission—made up of 10 senators and congressmen, and chaired by Sen. Edgardo J. Angara—recommended specifically that Congress make the vernacular and Filipino the medium of instruction for basic education. The Edcom report, written after an 11-month study, became the basis for reform laws that restructured the Department of Education and created a separate commission to supervise higher education. Edcom also ordered the DepEd to develop instructional materials in Filipino. It envisioned that all subjects in elementary and high-school education—except English and other languages—would be taught in Filipino by the year 2000.