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PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
CPP supports students' protest against "bridge program"
June 3, 2004
The Communist Party of the Philippines today expressed support to high school students' protest against the "Pre-Secondary High School Bridge Program" now being imposed by the Department of Education (DepEd).
CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said that program does not resolve, merely glosses over and will only perpetuate the underlying basic problem of government bureaucratism and its public school system's failure at providing adequate and quality education, starting at the elementary level.
The one-year "high school bridge program" has been designed as a remedial measure to make up for a big number of elementary school graduates who are categorized by the DECS as unprepared for high school. The DepEd estimates that starting this year, about 700,000 incoming public high school freshmen, largely from rural areas and urboon poor communities, will have to go through this program before being allowed to enter regular high school. This number comprises 50% of all public elementary school graduates.
Rosal expressed that "the very fact that the government has supposedly graduated several hundred thousands from elementary school and yet finds them to be inadequately prepared for high school is an indictment of its own utter failure."
"If there should be any specific remedy, it should be directed at removing the bureaucratic obstacles, adressing the social needs, fixing the proper priorities and upgrading the public elementary and high school educational system that has been sorely neglected by the government," said Rosal.
Rosal said that the government systematically and criminally neglects the social requisites of the people, especially the most deprived, including their need for free adequate and quality public education.
He said that in implementing the "bridge program" without doing anything to firstly and principally address the more basic problems bugging the public school system, the government will just be passing on the burden to the people, blaming and punishing the victims of government negligence and covering up its failure to provide adequate and quality universal public elementary and high school.
Rosal placed the blame for all this in the lopsided allocation of government funds which are eaten up mainly by gargantuan foreign debt service payments, military expenditures, bureaucratic corruption and wastage. Rosal noted that in the 2004 national budget, as much as 31% is allocated to debt servicing, while the allocation for education is limited to only 12%.
He added that this is highlighted by the low salary as well as lack of teachers and training of teachers; inadequate educational infrastructure, equipment, books and materials; and the absence of other educational support mechanisms.
Rosal noted that there has been a long-standing demand from students and teachers for government to allocate more funds in order to raise teachers' salaries and build the necessary infrastructure to ensure and upgrade the public educational system.
High school students led by the League of Filipino Students - High School have protested the DepEd "bridge program" calling it "undemocratic" and "pro-capitalist."
The CPP, according to Rosal, calls for the establishment of a "patriotic, scientific and mass-oriented educational system that addresses the needs of the people and is integrated with the overall objective of building a sovereign and progressive Philippines."
Rosal said that in carrying out protest rallies and other actions against the "bridge program," and highlighting the more fundemental problems of delivering public education and social services to the people, the high school students are doing their fellow youth, their parents and the people in general a great service." #
Reference:
Anne Buenaventura
Media Officer
Cellphone Number: +63910-240-3553
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