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Education Sector Stakeholders' Position Paper on Charter Change (Cha-Cha)

Aimed at Opening Philippine Schools to Prospective 100% Foreign Ownership as
Contained in Resolution of Bo...

Technical Report · March 2024

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27707.80168

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Education Sector Stakeholders’ Position Paper on Charter
Change (Cha-Cha) Aimed at Opening Philippine Schools to
Prospective 100% Foreign Ownership as Contained in
Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) No. 7
(presented to the Philippine House of Representatives 04 March 2024)
We are various education sector stakeholders united under the banner of the broad
alliance Teachers, Education Workers, and Academics Against Charter Change
(TEACH).
We stand united against current moves to amend the 1987 Constitution, especially those
aimed at opening Philippine schools to prospective 100% foreign ownership on the
following grounds:
 Opening up Philippine schools to 100% foreign ownership will reverse the little
progress that we have achieved away from neocolonialism and will restore what
Jose Rizal in Chapter 7 of El Filibusterismo has called as “cadenas más duras que
el diamante” (“chains harder than diamond”) imposed by (neo)colonial education
which will be certainly re-imposed by cha-cha’s 100% foreign ownership agenda.

 Opening up Philippine schools to 100% foreign ownership does not and will not
resolve the current education crisis which in our case is caused by decades of
insufficient public funding for education (see Fig. 1 and Fig. 2), low salaries for
teachers (see Fig. 3), perennial backlogs in instructional materials (see Fig. 4) and
facilities (classrooms, libraries, barangay reading centers, internet etc.), stunting
and malnutrition among our children, to name just a few perennial problems.
Fig. 1 Mathematics performance and spending on education (PISA 2022)
Source: OECD (2023)

Fig. 2 Mean reading performance and cumulative spending on education per student, in USD PPP
(PISA 2018)

555
Singapore
Hong Kong (China)
New Zealand Chinese Taipei
530 Canada Finland United Kingdom R² = 0.49
Estonia
Ireland Korea Macao (China)
Poland Sweden
Germany Japan
505 United States
Slovenia Australia Norway
Portugal
Czech Republic France Belgium OECD average: 487 points
Croatia
480 Russia Latvia Netherlands Austria
Mean reading score

Belarus Hungary Italy

Iceland Luxembourg
Ukraine Lithuania Israel
Turkey Slovak Republic
455 Chile
Romania Greece
Serbia Malta
Moldova Mexico
430 Uruguay
Montenegro Cyprus
OECD average: USD 89,092

Bulgaria
Jordan Brazil Malaysia Qatar
Colombia Brunei Darussalam
405 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Argentina
Peru
North Macedonia
380 Kazakhstan Thailand
Panama
Indonesia
355 Philippines
Dominican Republic
330
0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 350,000
Cumulative expenditure per student from age 6 to 15 (in US dollars)

Source: World Bank, 2020

Fig. 3 Entry-level teachers’ monthly salary in OECD

Source: OECD, 2024

Fig. 4 Summary of Successful Procurement of Textbooks (2012-2023) in the Philippines for Grade 1
to Grade 10

Source: EDCOM2, 2024

 Rather than open up our schools to foreign ownership, the Philippine government
should be reminded that improving the quality of Philippine education is a state
obligation.
 Opening up Philippine schools to 100% foreign ownership will only further worsen
the commercialization of our education system as foreign corporations are known
to be very profit-oriented in nature and will have no care whatsoever for our
country’s achievement of quality education and development. Cautionary tales on
foreign control of certain schools in countries such as India, Kenya, Liberia,
Nigeria, and Uganda have been documented (see Wadekar and Grim, 2023; Riep
and Machacek, 2016). The Philippines’ own experiences with transnational
education corporations are also generally negative (see Riep, 2015). Foreign
corporations will not invest to improve the quality of education, but rather, only to
earn quick bucks, to our education system’s further detriment. In fact, typical
prospectuses of such foreign entities clearly state that profit is their main goal (for
an example, see US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2015).
 Opening up Philippine schools to 100% foreign ownership is tantamount to treason
as it means surrendering our education system to foreigners who don’t know
anything about the root causes of our education crisis and whose only agenda is
to squeeze profits out of Filipino families’ pockets.
 Opening up the education system to 100% foreign ownership may also force some
small and medium-sized private schools to shut down, which can consequently
cause labor lay-offs and displacement of students especially in areas that are
underserved by public schools.
 Genuine global competitiveness means that our students are able to learn what
typical students in other countries learn and does not require 100% foreign
ownership, but rather, good management and optimal use of our own resources to
continuously improve our education system partly by benchmarking with global
standards and at the same time ensuring that the education system is responsive
to our communities’ needs and primarily meant to serve our own national
development, rather than foreign corporations’ greed for profits and needs for
migrant workers.
 We can still engage in internationalization – without 100% foreign ownership of
schools – by engaging in mutually beneficial academic linkages, faculty and
student exchanges, and through studying abroad to focus on best practices which
we can adopt if applicable to the Philippine situation.
 As Renato Constantino has emphasized in the classic pamphlet Miseducation of
the Filipino, “(e)ducation must both be seen not as an acquisition of information
but as the making of man so that he may function most effectively and and usefully
within his own society. Therefore, education cannot be divorced from the society
of a definite country at a definite time. It is a fallacy to think that educational goals
should be the same everywhere and that therefore what goes into the making of a
well-educated American is the same as what should go into the making of the well-
educated Filipino. This would be true only if the two societies were at the same
political, cultural, and economic level and had the same political, cultural and
economic goals.” In our case, it is clear that ours is still a developing nation whose
political, cultural and economic goals are very distinct from those of the developed
 nations (from where many of the supposed foreign investors come). Hence, we
cannot put our education system into the hands of foreign corporations.

 The framers of the 1987 Constitution were right to nurture the Filipinization of the
country’s education system and to set clear limits on foreign ownership of schools
in our country. As Commissioner Chito Gascon has noted, “(t)he basic principle
that we would like to assure...is that educational institutions play a role in instilling
values and, consequently, the molding of public opinion...So basically, the intent,
when we speak of educational institutions being wholly owned by Filipinos, is that
in the rearing of Filipino citizens, Filipino values are encouraged...” Within this
context, foreign ownership of Philippine schools means allowing foreigners to
tragically impose their own values and way of thinking on our citizens. Conversely,
Commissioner Wilfrido Villacorta emphasized that putting our schools in the hands
of our fellow Filipinos “is really to ensure” that schools “...do not lose sight of their
Filipino character...It is borne out by the experience of many schools... that when
Filipinos took over there seems to have been an improvement in the social
orientation and nationalistic content of the schools.” As the economist Alejandro
Lichauco remarked in his book Towards a New Economic Order and the Conquest
of Mass Poverty, inculcating “intense nationalism” is among the primary
ingredients of an education system that works for our national development. This
is something which foreign corporations won’t and can’t inculcate as it goes against
their dominance in the neocolonial set up where our country is still trapped.

 Hence, rather than use precious public funds for pointless and non-exhaustive cha-
cha hearings, Congress should utilize public funds for urgent steps needed to
improve the quality of education such as increasing salaries of teachers, reducing
class sizes, supplying 1 textbook per subject per student at all levels, and building
enough classrooms, libraries, barangay reading centers for our students and
communities, at the very least.
Furthermore, we also stand united against similar moves to do away with foreign
ownership limitations in various sectors of the economy (such as public utilities,
advertising etc.) and also warn against the possibility of dynasty-backed political cha-cha
that could remove term limits, destroy or weaken existing checks and balances (e.g. by
wiping out the Senate in favor of a rubber-stamp, dynasty-led unicameral parliament), or
even delete the constitutional ban on political dynasties.
We urge the House of Representatives and the Senate to exercise caution and listen to
various stakeholders’ inputs on cha-cha, rather than allow themselves to become witting
or unwitting instruments of the most powerful dynasties and foreign big business
lobbyists.
References:

1986 Constitutional Commission. 1986. R.C.C. No. 69 Friday, August 29, 1986.
https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1986/08/29/r-c-c-no-69-friday-august-29-1986/
_____________________________. 1986. R.C.C. NO. 70 Saturday, August 30, 1986.
https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/24/50984

Constantino, Renato. The Miseducation of the Filipino. Journal of Contemporary Asia, Vol.1., No.1 (1970).
https://doi.org/10.1080/00472330080000421

Lichauco, Alejandro. 1986. Towards a New Economic Order and the Conquest of Mass Poverty.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD). 2023. The State of Learning and
Equity in Education. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/53f23881-
en/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/53f23881-en

_______________________________________________________. 2024. Teachers' salaries (indicator).

doi: 10.1787/f689fb91-en (Accessed on 03 March 2024). https://data.oecd.org/teachers/teachers-
salaries.htm

Riep, Curtis and Mark Machacek. 2016. Schooling the poor profitably: the innovations and deprivations of
Bridge International Academies in Uganda. https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/25704:schooling-the-poor-
profitably-the-innovations-and-deprivations-of-bridge-international-academies-in-uganda

Riep, Curtis. 2015. Corporatised education in the Philippines: Pearson, Ayala Corporation and the
emergence of Affordable Private Education Centers (APEC). https://www.ei-
ie.org/en/item/25675:corporatised-education-in-the-philippines-pearson-ayala-corporation-and-the-
emergence-of-affordable-private-education-centers-apec

Rizal, Jose. 1872. El Filibusterismo. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30903/pg30903-images.html

Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2). MISEDUCATION The Failed System of
Philippine Education EDCOM II Year One Report. https://edcom2.gov.ph/#report

US Securities and Exchange Commission. 2015. Nord Anglia Education, Inc.

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1492966/000104746915005370/a2224948z424b5.htm

World Bank. 2020. PISA 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment PHILIPPINES Country
Report. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/184251593328815913/Main-Report.docxn

Wadekar, Neha and Ryan Grim. 2023. A IS FOR ABUSE Two Harvard Grads Saw Big Profits in African
Education. Children Paid the Price. https://theintercept.com/2023/03/23/bridge-schools-africa-kenya-
education/

To signify our unity in submitting this position paper, we sign our names and
affiliations below:

Arlan Camba
President, Unyon ng mga Guro sa PUP

Bryan Lim M. Corpuz

Vice President High School Faculty Association - St. Scholastica’s College Manila

Carl Marc Ramota

Faculty Regent, University of the Philippines System
David Michael San Juan
President, Association of Faculty and Educators of DLSU (AFED)

Erlinda Alfonso
President, Quezon City Public School Teachers Association

Francis Gealogo
Lead Convener, Tanggol Kasaysayan

Gabriel Gagno
Alliance Officer, Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy
(CONTEND)

Jose Monfred Sy
Spokesperson, Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy
(CONTEND)

Ma. Sonia Tomalabcad

Convener, Tanggol Kasaysayan Public Schools

Patricia Camille Villa

PUP Center for Public Administration and Governance Studies

Paulo Benedicto Villar

PUP Center for Peace, Social Justice, aand Human Rights Studies

Perlita Raña
All UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU)

Ramir Cruz
Faculty Regent, Polytechbic University of the Philippines

Raymond Basilio
Secretary General, Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines

Rowell Madula
Chairperson, ACT Private Schools

Ruby Bernardo
President, ACT NCR Union

Vladimeir Gonzales
Convener, Tanggol Wika
 Vladimer Quetua
National Chairperson, ACT Philippines

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