Vice President Sara Duterte resigned from her posts as the Secretary of the Department of Education and Vice Chairperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) last June 19, a move welcomed by progressive groups.
ACT Teachers Partylist Representative France Castro primarily criticized VP Duterte’s appointment as the DepEd Secretary for her lack of experience and capacity. For the partylist, VP Duterte’s 2-year stint as the Education Secretary resulted in no significant action against the country’s in-crisis public instruction state. Additionally, Castro said such resignation should have come earlier to appoint a much-qualified secretary.
For Castro, VP Duterte’s resignation as the vice chair of the NTF-ELCAC shows the heightening of the conflict between the Marcoses and the Duterte. Furthermore, this resignation is received by the fact that VP Duterte’s sole legacy through this agency was her blatant red-tagging of various progressive groups. Of the country.
Kabataan Partylist Representative Raoul Manuel calls the resignation as proof of Duterte’s insincerity as the DepEd Secretary the moment she was appointed. He continues that the resignation signals her apathy towards the education sector from the very start.
VP Sara Duterte resigned from her posts as Department of Education Secretary and Vice-Chairperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict last June 19 without giving any reason for the matter.
On July 2, 2024, President Marcos Jr. appointed Senator Sonny Angara. Angara’s appointment was endorsed by key educational organizations: the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) and the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU). ACT Teachers Partylist thinks such an appointment is a “much-improved choice” for the education department. ACT recalls Angara’s amicability to dialogues and suggestions regarding issues on education during his term as a senator.
With this appointment, ACT hopes that Angara remains “different from his red-tagger predecessor”./PT