CAMARINES Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. filed a bill that seeks to include a comprehensive course on Ethics and Values Formation in the curricula of public and private schools, colleges and universities.

In pushing for House Bill 9105 or the proposed Ethics and Values Formation Act, Villafuerte said teachers have the duty to guide the students in their value formation and inculcate in them Filipino values of patriotism, bayanihan, palabra de honor, delicadeza, honesty and respect.

The measure mandates the creation of Ethics and Value-formation syllabus that includes six levels of public morality — Basic Honesty and Conformity to Law; Conflicts of interest; Service orientation and procedural fairness; The ethics of democractic responsibility; The ethics of public policy determination; and The ethics of compromise and social integration.

It also mandates the Deparment of Education and the Commission on Higher Education to adopt a system to implement the law.

“The classroom is a professional environment for learning, and character must be explicitly taught there. Teachers can use the classroom both as a forum for direct instruction and as an opportunity to lead by example,” he said in his explanatory note.

The lawmaker added that academic institutions must actively support families for moral education to be effective.