School's out

A STATEMENT from the local government of the City of San Fernando:
“We cannot clearly see unselfish motives behind the signing of the agreement between the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on the prohibition of local government units from opening local universities and colleges (LUCs).
We in the City of San Fernando, Pampanga have been pushing for the establishment of a City College for quite some time. We have seen the real need for such an institution when confronted with the glaring figures.
As of latest count, 80 out of 100 high school graduates in this country can no longer enter college.
What has happened to that dream of many a Filipino parent to have their children finish their schooling and become degree holders?
With this moratorium, the CHED and the DILG will only limit the options of our people in seeking the fulfillment of this dream. This is not the CHED’s mission. Nor is it the DILG’s.
What the CHED must do is to remain vigilant in seeking out those learning institutions that do not render quality education to their students. It is not in its place to stop local governments from realizing their goal of giving their people good and affordable choices for learning.
Our advocacy for quality education continues not only for the sake of our youth but more so because of our burning desire to make the City of San Fernando a Habitat for Human Excellence in the not so distant future.
No CHED-imposed moratorium will ever hinder us from attaining this vision.”
THE “UNSELFISH MOTIVES” that cannot be clearly seen as behind the CHED-DILG agreement prohibiting local government units from establishing their own colleges or universities may be gleaned though from the fact that the current head of CHED is none other than the esteemed educator Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles, long-time president and chancellor of the family-owned Angeles University Foundation (AUF) in Angeles City.
Yes, it is not only in the City of San Fernando but also in the Municipality of Mabalacat, where its own community college is now into its second semester, that cries of “vested interests” have been raised on the CHED-DILG prohibition.
Yes, clear as day, so it is alleged, community colleges in Pampanga are prevented from operating because they would take enrollees out of the AUF.
Unfair. Utterly unfair to attribute purely selfish motives on the part of the esteemed educator Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles when all he wanted was to raise the quality of education in the country. Now, if only every school hereabouts could rise to the level of the AUF, then, the Philippines would have regained its pre-eminent position as the center of learning in the Asia-Pacific region.
Well short of experience in running schools, nay, absolute zero in that regard, politics being their main pre-occupation, the LGUs’ will most certainly create more diploma mills around the country. And what good would that do to this already benighted nation?
Woe unto these LGUs for revolting against such a noble mission!
What right have these LGUs to know what is best in educating the youth? Would these LGUs ever know any better than the CHED, any better than the seasoned, esteemed educator that is Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles?
So, as the esteemed educator Dr. Emmanuel Y. Angeles knows best, the LGUs, like dutiful pupils should just let him do the rest.
Class dismissed.