VP Sara: DepEd to implement alternative learning modes during transport strike

MANILA – Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte on Sunday maintained that alternative learning modes—both in-person and online—must be implemented during the looming transport strike this week that she said would hurt the Department of Education’s (DepEd) “learning recovery” agenda.

The official called out the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Party-list group for urging DepEd’s regional and division offices to cancel physical classes in areas where public transportation would be affected by the strike due to the government’s jeepney modernization program.

“Learning recovery is foremost on the agenda of the Department of Education today. It does not include the pointless weeklong transport strike supported by ACT,” Duterte said in a statement sent to media. 

“I maintain that during this communist-inspired weeklong strike, both in-person and alternative delivery modes of learning shall be implemented, whichever is convenient to the learners,” she added.

The Vice President, who’s also the concurrent Education chief, stressed that the strike is a “painful interference” and a “learning disruption” while the country works to solve the problems besetting the education sector. 

She added that it would only “exacerbate the learning hardships of our students.”

“ACT supporting this transport strike, and shamelessly harping twisted justifications for it, only betrays its true colors — that it is a group that does not really serve the interest of students and teachers,” she said.

“But ACT couldn’t care less if our efforts are hampered or if we fail because — as a lover of the useless ideologies espoused by the New People’s Army (NPA), the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) — ACT’s dream is for our children to remain uneducated and poor,” Duterte furthered. 

She instead urged the party-list group to “show its sincerity” to students, the teachers, and the entire Philippine education system by working with local government units and other government agencies “to ensure the convenience of learners during the transport strike instead of supporting it.”

The transport strike will run from March 6 to 12 and would involve some 40,000 traditional jeepneys and UV express units to protest the jeepney modernization program, which plans to phase out traditional jeepneys by the end of this year.

The original date for the phaseout was on June 30, but this has since been moved. 

Under the program, operators of consolidated entities would be required to purchase modern vehicles that cost between P2.4 million and P2.8 million each.