VICE President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte yesterday said she will leave it to education experts to address the questions generated by the department’s controversial move to change the term “Diktadurang Marcos” to “Diktadura” in the Grade 6 Araling Panlipunan subject under the MATATAG curriculum.
“They can argue with the education experts in the Curriculum and Teaching Strand of the Department of Education because it was the education experts who decided what direction to take,” Duterte told GMA7’s regional television in Mindanao.
It was Duterte’s initial reaction to the issue, which drew flak from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, Teachers Dignity Coalition and Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy and lawmakers, who said the move is a form of historical disinformation and revisionism.
Duterte had previously acknowledged she lacked the education background to deal with the nitty-gritty details of the department tasked to provide basic education to Filipinos.
Early this year, she said she could not personally review the revisions on the K to 10 curriculum due to her lack of background in education.
Duterte said she relied on department experts to tackle the “Diktadura” issue, adding she caused stress to Undersecretary Gina Gonong, who heads the Curriculum and Teaching Division of DepEd.
“I felt guilty kasi alam ko na isa ako sa nag-cause ng stress sa kanya (I feel guilty because I know I am one of those who caused her stress) because I do not come from the education sector, I don’t have an education background so I cannot review what they are doing,” Duterte said then.
Last Monday, DepEd Bureau of Curriculum Development Director Jocelyn Andaya refuted claims that there was an intention to distort or revise history, especially what happened during the martial law years.
Andaya also claimed there was no political pressure for them to remove the term “Marcos” in the “Diktadurang Marcos” phrase in the Araling Panlipunan subject, adding the change in nomenclature was only made “after the arduous process of review and revision was done under the guidance and scrutiny of experts, the review of stakeholders, and the public and the launch of the MATATAG curriculum.”
She also said the new curriculum would still touch on the topics regarding martial law, the Marcos dictatorship, the emasculation of democratic institutions such as the legislature during the period, human rights abuses, ill-gotten wealth, the fight against the dictatorship, and the killing of opposition Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino in 1983.
