A GROUP of more than 1,500 private schools in the country has withdrawn from the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, the government’s task force created to supposedly fight insurgency.
The Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations said it asked to withdraw from the task force which it only joined in November last year as one of two private representatives to the executive committee.
In a statement, COCOPEA said its withdrawal is “of utmost significance in preserving the essentiality of academic freedom and the vital role it plays in a democratic society.”
The group, however, said it remains one with the task force’s mission to achieve unity, peace, security, and socioeconomic development, and that it will continue to represent the private education sector in dialogues with the task force on matters that align with its goals and objectives.
The NTF-ELCAC said it respects the COCOPEA’s decision to withdraw from the Executive Committee, adding that the step was an internal matter.
The task force said it remains firm in its campaign against violent extremism and terrorist-grooming, particularly the recruitment of young students into armed struggle.
The threat to academic freedom as a function of so-called anti-insurgency efforts was last in display four years ago, when some state colleges and universities to remove subversive materials from their libraries, when the printing and distribution of some books were stopped for containing text that could be interpreted as inciting to terrorism, and when bookstores in Quezon City and Manila were targeted.
The NTF ELCAC over the years has become a familiar name not because of its noble pursuits; its notoriety stems from its red tagging activities, more pronounced during the previous administration. But no less than the Supreme Court has declared that red-tagging, vilification, labelling, and guilt by association threaten a person’s right to life, liberty, or security.
Because “internal reasons” were cited as an explanation, only the COCOPEA could say exactly what differences and challenges to academic freedom prompted it to leave the executive committee after only two months. We welcome the move, nonetheless. Academic freedom is sacrosanct in educating and enlightening the minds of our young people.
Instead of telling the youth what to think or not to think, or what to read or not to read, we should work towards helping them how to read and receive information so that they could make decisions based on hard facts and evidence, be swayed only by logic and rationality, and think for themselves.
