VP Sara asked: You want to talk about ‘critical thinking,’ seriously?
Vice President Sara Duterte has “no moral right” to call on teachers to foster critical thinking among students, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said on Saturday, recalling the questions of integrity and management skills that arose when she was education secretary.
ACT chair Vladimer Quetua dismissed as “hypocrisy” Duterte’s call for “critical thinking” during National Teachers’ Month when the vice president herself failed to think critically about classroom shortages, lack of textbooks and other learning materials, teachers’ unpaid benefits and “budget mismanagement.”
“There is no place for empty rhetoric from an official who carries the burden in worsening the education sector’s problems and allowing teachers to suffer,” he added.
During an investigation of the House of Representatives, Duterte was found have disbursed P612.5 million in confidential funds via security officers and not through budget officers as required by law.
No explanation offered
The P612.5-million funds were made part of the articles of impeachment that the House of Representatives sent to the Senate. But the upper chamber has opted to shelve the articles of impeachment, possibly closing the book on the unexplained funds.
The Department of Education (DepEd) said from P4 million to P6 million in confidential funds to a security officer for purposes outside of the mandate of the secretary of education.
Earlier this year, the DepEd reported that about P12.2 billion worth of questionable transactions disallowed by the Commission on Audit remained unresolved.
To date, the Vice President has offered no explanation for the use of the P612.5-million fund, the P4-million to P6-million disbursements or the P12.2 billion in disallowed transactions.
Aside from the financial issues, Queta said Duterte should also be held accountable for antidemocratic actions.
“There’s no one who is more thick-faced than Sara Duterte to speak about critical thinking and advancing democracy, while she herself led the Red-tagging, suppression, deception and even worsening the education crisis,” Quetua said in a statement.
“Her only legacy in DepEd was her poor performance and anomalies—from worsening the crisis to her Red-tagging spree and even the militarization of the department,” Quetua added.
