Youth groups against K-12 camp out outside DepEd

Several youth groups on Friday continued their two-day camp protest against the K to 12 program outside the Department of Education office in Pasig City.

Grupo ng mga kabataang kontra K to 12, nagpalipas ng magdamag sa labas ng @DepEd_PH-Pasig. | via @luisitosantos03 pic.twitter.com/opLPmkqyBh

— DZBB Super Radyo (@dzbb) May 26, 2016

Led by Anakbayan group, the protesters started storming the DepEd office Thursday afternoon.

Members of the Kabataan Partylist, National Union of Students of the Philippines, College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines, and League of Filipino Students joined the protest rally.

At around 2 p.m. Thursday, the groups managed to enter DepEd's compound, causing an altercation with security and police forces in the area which left the head of security and one policeman injured.

In a press statement, Anakbayan National Chairperson Vencer Crisostomo said the protest is to show incoming president Rodrigo Duterte the sentiment of the public towards the K to 12 program.

“Allowing K-12 to continue is like tolerating crime. This is not the change hoped for by many who voted for Duterte. Ang K-12 ay pabigat at pahirap sa ordinaryong pamilyang Pilipino,” Crisostomo said.

He said the incoming president is being fooled by the promoters of the K to 12 program by the current administration.

In earlier reports, Duterte had a change of heart towards K to 12 program, which he now supports. 

“I was against it on the first day it was being implemented, but the bright guys sa Department of Education came to see me and explained to me how we are failing behind our neighbors,” he told reporters in Davao City on Monday night.

Crisostomo argued that the incoming president has to hear the sides of the students, parents and teachers who will be affected by the implementation of the program.

“These ‘bright guys’ from DepEd apparently only told the incoming president good things about the K-12 program while leaving out problems like the acute shortages of teachers and facilities. They left out telling him that implementing K-12 will force many students to shift to private schools or just drop out from schooling,” Crisostomo said.

On June 13, the first batch of Grade 11 students will enter Senior High School, marking the Philippines’ shift to the K to 12 program.  

According to data gathered by Anakbayan, public schools may accomodate only 800,000 to 1.1 million of the two million incoming Senior High School students.

With this, Crisostomo said more pupils will be forced to enroll in private schools.

“The K-12 is a criminal program favoring oligarchs with the SHS program designed to ensure more enrollees for private schools and automatic profits in the form of vouchers. Fact is DepEd officials may already have received commissions from private school owners thus their insistence on pushing through the K-12 program,” he claimed. —Kiersnerr Gerwin Tacadena/KG, GMA News