“THE PHILIPPINE education system is being held hostage by the Duterte administration’s ineptitude in dealing with the pandemic.”

This was the statement of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers after President Rodrigo Duterte turned down the proposal of the Department of Education to resume limited face-to-face classes.

The group criticized the government’s failed pandemic response which it said “ties the entire education system to its equally failed remote learning program.”

“More than a year into the pandemic and we’re yet to see significant strides in our fight to get out of this health crisis. The several militaristic lockdowns without ample medical response expectedly failed to contain the virus. Now, Covid19 cases are on the rise again and mostly outside NCR, where we could have piloted a limited run of face-to-face classes,” Raymond Basilio, the group’s secretary general, said.

“This excessive prolonging of school lockdown is tantamount to the President’s own admission of his failed vaccine program, much like the rest of his responses to Covid19,” he added.

As of June 20, 2021, the country still lags in vaccination with only around 1.98 percent of the population fully inoculated.

Figures from the Reuters Covid19 tracker as of June 20 shows that the Philippines only administers 173,908 jabs per day, which is still far from the needed 700,000 daily jabs to cover 70 percent of the population by end of 2021.

“At the rate we’re going, the country is nowhere near the government’s own target for herd immunity; especially with government neglect leading to the quick spread of the virus throughout the country, particularly in places where the state of health services and facilities are most dismal,” Basilio said.

While new Covid19 cases have gone down in the National Capital Region, a steep increase was observed in other areas like Valencia in Bukidnon, Cebu City, Davao City and Polomolok in South Cotabato.

“It’s starting to feel like we’re at the mercy of the behavior of this virus, like there’s no government at all.  President Duterte claims he can’t gamble on the health of children, but what has he done to protect them and their rights aside from keeping them locked away in their homes? Part of ensuring the welfare of our youth is ensuring their access to quality education, what has Duterte done for education amid the pandemic? Nothing. Even his joke of a promise for transistor radios never materialized,” Basilio said.