With the recent decision of the Supreme Court declaring the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 20 Series of 2013 as valid and official, maybe Dr. Jose P. Rizal is rolling inside his grave.
The Memorandum of Order issued by CHED reduced the General Education Curriculum (GEC) to minimum of 36 units. Thereby making Filipino and “Panitikan” (Philippine Literature) subjects excluded from the core subjects in tertiary education.
For so many decades, the Filipino students were taught to love the Filipino language. Needless to say, the famous line attributed to Dr. Jose Rizal about loving our own language said, “Ang hindi magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit sa hayop at malansang isda, kaya ating pagyamaning kusa, gaya ng inang sa atin ay nagpala.” (Whoever does not love his own language is lower than a beast and a foul smelling fish. Therefore we must treasure it gladly, like our mothers who blessed us.)
THEPHILBIZNEWS tries to get the reaction of the Knight of Rizal’s Supreme Pursuivant Mark Roy Boado regarding the decision of Supreme Court, but as of this posting he has not replied yet.
Meanwhile, the Alyansa ng Mga Tagapagtanggol ng Wikang Filipino (Tanggol Wika) strongly condemned the memorandum stating that it violates Republic Act 7104 (Organic Act of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino/KWF/Commission on the Filipino Language), Republic Act No. 232 (Education Act of 1982), and Republic Act No. 7356 (Organic Act of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts/NCCA).
The High Court’s decision declaring Commission on Higher Education (CHED)’s Memorandum Order (CMO) as valid and official was slammed by Tanggol Wika and expressed their deep sorrow and anguish over this. The group is an alliance of educators from more than 40 colleges and universities, filed and successfully secured a temporary restraining order for the implementation of the said memorandum for four years since 2015 and this would pave way for the TRO lifting.
In the Facebook page of Tanggol Wika, they expressed their condemnation on the decision, “Halos apat na taon na ang TRO laban sa CMO No. 20 at ngayo’y ibinasura na ito ng Korte. Ikinalulungkot at ikinagagalit natin ang desisyon ng Korte. Hindi pa tapos ang laban.”
