Posts circulating on Facebook (FB) claim Sen. Raffy Tulfo has taken action, and with Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio, abolished the K to 12 education system. This is not true.
First shared on Jan. 20, the link bore the headline:
“KAKAPASOK LANG HALA KA! SEN RAFFY TULFO UMAKSYON NA K-12 PROGRAM ni PNOY TANG-GAL NA VPSARA PBBM (JUST IN OH, NO! SEN RAFFY TULFO ALREADY TOOK ACTION K-12 PROGRAM OF PNOY NOW REMOVED VPSARA PBBM)!”
The thumbnail featuring images of Duterte, Tulfo and President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos also carried the text:
“NA-SHOCKED SI PBBM SA MATINDING UTOS NI TULFO VP SARA. DEPED K-12 TANGGAL NA (PBBM SHOCKED BY THE INTENSE ORDER OF TULFO VP SARA. DEPED K-12 NOW REMOVED).”
The link only contained a Jan. 18 YouTube video with the same headline and thumbnail.
This is false. Not one legislator can abolish a program created by a law. Also, Tulfo has not filed any bill related to K to 12. There are currently no bills filed in The House of Representative and the Senate scrapping the program.
The Department of Education (DepEd) is currently reviewing the curriculum and Secretary Duterte-Carprio is expected to give an update of this review by the end of the month.
The narrator also misleadingly claimed that Tulfo “agreed with Duterte’s proposal and revisions” to “scrap K to 12” and “have two years of military service as a new alternative.”
Duterte has yet to make such a proposal or revision to the program (Read related story VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Sara Duterte has NOT abolished K to 12).
It also played an audio clip of Tulfo from a June 2022 video where he commended “Duterte’s move to study the abolition of K to 12” as “he does not agree” with the program. Tulfo did not mention anything about adding military service.
Last July, Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture chairman Sherwin Gatchalian said that he was for review but not scrapping of the program. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano also expressed during DepEd’s budget hearing in November that the government can either suspend the implementation of K to 12 or fully fund it.
More than 60 public FB posts shared the link with the web domain name AVISE.INFO according to the social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle. It was circulated on FB groups like PRESIDENTE 2022 Philippines New (created on Oct. 18, 2021) and Philippines Training New (Oct. 24, 2021) and by FB pages like BBM-Sara Uniteam. (Sept. 5, 2022) and Philippines Media Coverage (Jan. 13, 2021).
The video by the YouTube channel BANAT NEWS TV (Dec. 26, 2015) garnered 59,598 views. Reaction videos by channels XREW (March 18, 2014) and TUNAY NA KRITIKO (Jan. 22, 2020) with the same false headlines garnered additional 11,248 views.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
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