Campus journo group slams PNoy’s ‘incompetence’ two days before his last SONA

Two days before his last State of the Nation Address, a group of campus journalists on Saturday lashed out on President Benigno Aquino III for his "incompetence."

In a statement on its 84th anniversary, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) pointed out the supposed "failures" of the Aquino administration in addressing the issues of the education sector.

It said the the most glaring evidence of the administration's incompetence is the continued deregulation and commercialization of Philippine education, and the K to 12 program.

“In Aquino’s five years as president, the Filipino youth witnessed how tuition and other school fees skyrocketed through deregulation, how Aquino slashed the budget for state-owned schools to forward commercialization, how Aquino and (DepEd Sec. Armin) Luistro stubbornly implemented the colonial K to 12 program, and how the state violated the right of the Filipino people to quality and accessible education at all levels,” CEGP National President Marc Lino Abila said.

Moreover, Abila said Aquino's programs do not solve the country's education crisis, but worsen them instead, adding that under the K to 12 program the youths would become "docile, cheap, and semi-skilled laborers" – deprived of an education to develop the domestic agricultural economy.

Aquino's presidency, the group said, is an "utter failure" and his last SONA on Monday to be filled with "arrogance and lies."

In another message, Abila said the CEGP will continue exposing the ills of the country's present situation despite what he describes as "repression and fascism" inside Philippine universities.

CEGP is an organization of student journalists and publications advocating for press freedom, said to be the largest and oldest existing group of its kind in the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific region. — Raffy Cabristante/LBG, GMA News