March 6, 2023 – May I reiterate — the transport strike is a painful interference in our efforts to address the learning gaps and other woes in our education system.

We oppose it because it is problematic, it will hurt our learners, and the inconvenience that it may cause comes with an enormous price deleterious to learning recovery efforts — and this is a price that learners will have to pay.

If you cannot understand our position, or refuse to understand our position, or even pretend not to understand our position, this is only because of your unbelievable propensity to push a hardline agenda that punishes the general public.

This time, among the casualties are our learners and teachers.

Kawawa ang mga estudyante at mga guro.

The first failure of this transport strike is the failure to consider our learners and our teachers.

This does not come as a surprise anymore — a tactic clearly taken from a playbook familiar to many Filipinos.

Piston is an organization with leaders and some members poisoned by the ideologies of the bankrupt Communist Party of the Philippines, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, and the New People’s Army.

And happily cavorting with Piston and other militant organizations is ACT, a group that is diametrically nowhere near in the service of the interest of the learners and the education sector.

This is not red-tagging. This is a statement of fact.

Meanwhile, the progress and future of our learners cannot be left to the whims of organizations acting on bare selfish motives.

Magkaroon man ng tigil pasada, walang tigil sa pag-aaral ang mga kabataan.

Salamat po.

 

SARA Z. DUTERTE
Vice President of the Philippines and Education Secretary

 

END