Laws, constitutions especially, go by a particular rule of construction: Each term has a legally distinct meaning. Iteration and embellishment are not traits of legal draftsmanship. And so when the Constitution says of the State that it shall “exercise reasonable regulation and supervision” of all educational institutions, there are at least three significant points made: first, “regulation” is modified by “reasonable”; second, the word “control” which is frequently used in administrative contexts is deliberately excluded; third, the clause on the State’s supervisory authority is appended to a section that recognizes the complementary roles of public and private educations. Article XIV’s liberal provisions on education contrast starkly with the rigid regulatory authority that the Commission on Higher Education, partly through congressional fiat, has bestowed on itself. Apart from the frequently-discoursed provision on academic freedom, there are provisions providing for indigenous systems of learning, independent study and self-learning programs. All these items are, in CHEd’s scheme of things, “peripherals,” because it apparently has not disabused itself from the notion that it “controls” educational institutions!
Its CHED Memorandum Orders (CMOs) virtually render nugatory the entire concept of “academic freedom,” prescribing subjects that should be taken, who should teach and what requirements are exacted of students. Really, educational institutions, especially colleges and universities, have only themselves to blame. Higher educational institutions have only themselves to blame, because they ought to be the first line of defense of academic freedom. Where higher education institutions stand by the academic freedom that is guaranteed them by the Constitution to repulse the unreasonableness of overreaching regulation, the CHED is then respectfully bur firmly nudged towards a becoming reticence.
In most creditable universities under less dictatorial regulatory schemes, students are free to structure their own courses. Not in our country, where a list of subjects required for each level is set forth by CHED, with only a few spaces left for what it calls “electives.” The doctoral program is largely classroom work in the Philippines, although the PhD in fact be a research degree. What we have rather in our benighted land are students sitting through boring classes in compliance with required “classroom hours,” submitting sophomoric dissertations that involve paltry research designs and then receiving the PhD with very little independent study and research initiative to show for it. This is possible because degree-granting is “rules-based.”
In one interesting case, University of the Philippines v. Civil Service Commission (2001), the Supreme Court rebuffed the Civil Service Commission’s attempt to cause the dismissal of a UP professor who had supposedly transgressed civil service rules. The High Court made the salutary pronouncement that not even in the guise of enforcing civil service rules would the Commission be allowed to trump the academic freedom of the university.
There is one more point about state universities and colleges.These are instrumentalities of state created by distinct charters—legislative acts—each, with its own governing board. In the past, the Commission on Higher Education respected the autonomy of these state-created institutions. That SUCs comply with minimum standards is guaranteed by the position of the chairman of the CHED as ex officio chairman of the governing boards of SUCs. Apparently, that has not been enough for CHED, however. It has virtually assimilated the entire SUC system into its sphere of influence, in large measure because of acquiescence on the part of SUC administrators, and temerity on the part of the academic communities. Why does UP manage to resist CHED importuning? Not really because of its charter alone, because in respect to charter, most SUCs have similar charters. It is rather because UP’s academic community staunchly resists any attempts at “annexation.” Why is it so important that SUCs maintain their autonomy? The Constitution suggests the answer: The State is directed by the Constitution to take into consideration regional and sectoral needs in respect to education. State universities are statutorily created to be able to respond to the prime demand of “accessibility” and to tailor their programs and curricula accordingly, and this is frustrated by a rigid regulatory scheme that insists that all don a straitjacket of a plethora of rules and regulations.
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@yahoo.com