Manila Science faculty, students appeal SC decision favoring K-12

Teachers and former students of Manila Science High School (MSHS) who opposed the K-12 law before the Supreme Court have appealed the decision upholding the basic education program's constitutionality.

Lawyer Severo Brillantes, who represents the teachers, filed on Tuesday a motion for reconsideration of the justices' unanimous decision favoring the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, which he called a "despotic and anti-democratic education program."

Brillantes insisted the K-12 law violated substantive due process and that two more years of senior high school "is not reasonably necessary for the accomplishment of its intended purpose."

The SC recently ruled that it found no merit in the contentions of the high school students, their parents and some faculty members that the K-12 program was "arbitrary, unfair, oppressive, discriminatory and unreasonable" and unconstitutional.

In asserting that the addition of two years to the basic education curriculum should not apply to them, the petitioners claimed MSHS students are "gifted," "advanced for their age," and trained for tertiary education, not immediate employment.

But the Court said the petitioners failed to sufficiently show that the K-12 program was prompted by hostility and unreasonable discrimination, and that they fell short of validly classifying themselves from the rest of the high school students in the country.

"To be clear, the Court is not saying that petitioners are not gifted, contrary to their claims. The Court is merely saying that the K to 12 Law was not infirm in treating all high school students equally," the SC said in the decision written by Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa.

In his motion for reconsideration, Brillantes claimed that "not all Filipinos need a globally competitive education or one at par with international standards, meaning a 12-year basic education cycle."

"...Why burden each and every Filipino student with two additional years of senior high school, when it is not the dream of everyone either to study or work abroad and thus with the need to meet international standards?" the lawyer said.

"It should be asked in the very first place what is our dream for our people, “to be perennial OFWs?" he added.

He also said that with "adequate instruction," "sufficient books," and a "conducive learning environment," Filipino students do not need two more years of high school.

"For that reason, it is unduly oppressive and an unwarranted intrusion into the right to education of all Filipino students, thus violating their right to substantive due process," he said. —LDF, GMA News