VP Duterte doubles down on ‘red-baiting’ in reply to ACT and PISTON; ‘Talk less, act more’ responds ACT
Despite the backlash from concerned citizens and various cause-oriented groups, Vice President Sara Z. Duterte is not backing down on her earlier claim that the weeklong transport strike now in force across the country is a “communist-inspired” “painful interference” in the Department of Education’s (DepEd) learning recovery efforts.
Duterte fired the opening salvo in a DepEd statement released on Sunday wherein she called the strike “communist-inspired” and labelled the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) as a lover of communist ideologies that wants to keep the country’s children “uneducated and poor.”
The ACT, which has thrown its support behind the striking jeepney drivers and operators, counter-fired by saying it was “shameful” that the DepEd Secretary resorted to “red-tagging” the ACT instead of addressing the valid concerns of teachers and students in light of the scheduled transportation strike.
Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operator Nationwide (PISTON) national president Mody Floranda strongly condemned the red-baiting and blames the problems besetting Philippine education to Duterte’s mismanagement of DepEd.
Replying to ACT and PISTON via DepEd’s social media channels, Duterte maintained that she was not “red-tagging” but merely stating a fact and accused ACT of “happily cavorting” with PISTON and “other militant organizations” “acting on bare selfish motives” and pushing a “hardline agenda that punishes the general public.”
ACT was not about to take it sitting down, so the organization issued a rejoinder advising the education secretary to be more prudent in her words and put more of her energy to responding to the problems of the education system.
Meanwhile, the fight against ill thought-out jeepney modernization plan continues. Here’s a video clip of 71-year-old jeepney driver wiping away tears as he fears he might lose his job due to the unbearable cost of the modernization program. He, and many, many others like him, ought to be enjoying their sunset years instead of being saddled with a heavy debt burden imposed by elitist bureaucrats.
Netizens who understand the transport groups’ grievances are standing with jeepney drivers and operators and are calling on the government to look for solutions that do not pit their countrymen against each other. They also condemn Duterte’s refusal to “take the L” by remaining firm in her baseless accusation that the strike is inspired by communist ideology.
