CLAIM: In a video with the headline “KAKAPASOK LANG HALA KA! SEN RAFFY TULFO UMAKSYON NA K-12 PROGRAM ni PNOY TANG-GAL NA VPSARA PBBM.!” YouTube channel Banat News TV released January 18 claims that Senator Raffy Tulfo supports the alleged decision of Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte to remove the K-12 curriculum and replace it with a two-year mandatory military service program. As of writing, the video has more than 60,000 views and almost 2,000 likes.
Why it is false
While Sara Duterte has previously expressed that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. instructed her to review the implementation of K-12, she has not explicitly stated her desire to scrap it. In fact, she said in an interview that the abolition of K-12 cannot be decided overnight. DepEd is still reviewing the K-12 curriculum and is set to release their updates on January 30. There may be revisions in the said curriculum, but DepEd did not mention anything about its abolition.
Additionally, the implementation of the K-12 curriculum is mandated by Republic Act No. 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013. Being a law, its repeal is within the powers of the legislative branch and not the Department of Education. In 2018, DepEd already released a statement that it could not arbitrarily discontinue the K-12 program.
The concerned video also featured Sen. Tulfo suggesting that he supports Sara Duterte’s plan to scrap K-12. The statements featured were not recent but were made by Sen. Tulfo on June 24, 2022, on his Raffy Tulfo in Action YouTube channel. The said statements were in response to the news that Sara Duterte would look into the implementation of K-12.
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k-12 curriculum, philippines, sara duterte
