Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
HIGHER education, as now administered by the Commission on Higher Education, has committed so many sins against the Constitution of the Republic. I urge the administration of President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to revamp and, if necessary, dismantle the whole monstrous system that bureaucrats importuning legislators have set in place that has proven disastrous to higher education in the Philippines. I must preface my remarks, however, with the acknowledgment of regard and respect for such persons as Commissioner Ronald Adamat and Commissioner Aldrin Darilag.
The fundamental law of the land limits the State to "reasonable supervision and regulation." "Control" is not there, because a "controlled academic institution" is an oxymoron. Universities and colleges are privileged zones of freedom into which the State may venture only with caution and indeed trepidation. CHEd in fact controls higher education. It issues "Policies, Standards and Guidelines" — and higher education institutions that do not comply are subject to sanctions. If this is not control, then what is? CHEd has devised a system of interlocking classifications — Centers of Excellence, Centers of Development — incentivizing compliance with its often unreasonable and illogical requirements and prejudicing those institutions that do not. It awards deregulated and autonomous statuses as if academic autonomy were something it could choose to bestow or withhold!
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