VICE President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte continued blasting the ACT Teachers party-list saying the group has not done much to uplift the plight of teachers despite being in Congress for 12 years.

“For 12 years, ACT Teachers has been claiming to represent teachers in Congress. Yet our public school personnel continue to face financial woes and we have a generation of learners that are facing several challenges,” Duterte said in a statement.

“What has this self-proclaimed education sector representative done to remedy the problems we are facing now?” she asked, referring to ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro.

Duterte said that the party-list group cannot even publicly and explicitly condemn the violence perpetrated by the New People’s Army.

“To top it all, it is headed by France Castro, who is not only acting as lawyer of the terrorist NPA, but is also facing charges for the alleged kidnapping of Indigenous People’s children from Davao Region,” she added.

Duterte said that the Department of Education has made strides in addressing the problems of the students and education personnel.

“Allow me to educate ACT Teachers because the group is obviously uninformed, if not deliberately paying no attention to the developments happening within the sector,” she said.

Duterte said the DepEd successfully reopened schools and restarted on-site learning, a decision that was vehemently opposed and criticized by ACT Teachers.

“What would have happened to our learners if we allowed the demand of ACT Teachers to prevail over the urgency to reopen face-to-face learning?” she asked.