The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Enhanced Basic Education Act, dismissing all petitions that questioned its legality or that claimed its enactment was a grave abuse of discretion.
That means education programs like the K to 12 with its additional two years of high school are here to stay.
Our political leaders now have the burden of sustaining our children’s long years in school, a challenge compounded by the free tuition program for students of state universities.
When voters choose candidates to support in May 2019, their platform for education should be considered.
In the locales, officials who would sit in education committees or who are stewards of education funds should present clear plans for bringing and keeping children in school, especially public schools.
Who will take the Department of Education to task for the distribution of senior high learning modules that list Wikipedia in its bibliography?
Who will implement ordinances to strictly prohibit child labor, vagrancy, and truancy?
Who will implement crime prevention and health and environment measures with a view to keeping down dropout rates from sinister influences, disease, or disaster?
Will we have no more of children swimming across rivers to reach school or more of the same?
Who among the candidates for the Senate and the Lower House are committed to sustaining free education in state colleges and universities?
Who among them understands the concept of overload that either afflicts teachers for life or chases them out of academia and into greener pastures?
Surely lawmakers do not think Filipinos so dense, they would believe there is a shortage of money for learning when government revenues have never been higher amid expanded taxation.
An elective leader’s support for education is a litmus test of his commitment to democracy.
With all-out support for the education sector, he opens himself to the possibility of being replaced one day by more learned and accomplished constituent.
In scrimping on the education budget, he reveals his twisted intent to maintain a mediocre public that is incapable of enlightened, critical participation in governance, powerless to replace him or hold him accountable for the use or abuse of power.
Vote for leaders who have the will to enable our people to see clearly enough through education to help paddle our ship of nation to brighter shores.
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