MISSING CONTEXT: ALCADEV school never regulated by gov't

At a glance

Claim: The Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) was “never government-regulated,” according to Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy.
Rating: MISSING CONTEXT
The facts: While ALCADEV is not accredited by the Department of Education (DepEd), the school had access to the agency’s Alternative Learning System program in the past. ALCADEV is also registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a regulatory body.
Why we fact-checked this: Badoy made this claim during a virtual press conference of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on Monday, May 24.

Complete details

Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy claimed during a virtual press conference on Monday, May 24, that the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) was “never government-regulated.”

ALCADEV is an indigenous school for Lumad students in Surigao del Sur established in 2004.

“Those ALCADEV schools were never government-regulated. In fact, the reasons (sic) why they don’t exist anymore is because they’re not DepEd-accredited, and the reason why they’re not DepEd-accredited is because they never taught anything that was accredited by DepEd,” Badoy said during the regular briefing of the NTF-ELCAC.

This is missing context.

While ALCADEV is not accredited by the DepEd, the school had been coordinating with the DepEd Surigao del Sur Division for the implementation of the alternative learning system (ALS) program even before the Duterte administration.

Documents released by ALCADEV in July 2017 showed that it had been certified by various government agencies, including the DepEd and the SEC.

In a document dated February 17, 2016, the Surigao del Sur division of DepEd’s Bureau of Alternative Learning System (BALS) certified that ALCADEV “has access to accreditation and equivalency (A&E) program of the Alternative Learning System of the DepEd, Surigao del Sur division.” The document was signed by Education Program Supervisor-1 Alexander Dapar Jr.

The results of DepEd’s ALS A&E test during the school year 2014-2015 verified this, which showed that Aljon Dagpilan, one of ALCADEV’s graduates in 2014, passed DepEd’s exam.

DepEd’s ALS is a parallel learning system that aims to provide all Filipinos the chance to have access to basic education through modular and flexible programs that are not necessarily classroom-based. It caters to the needs of those who do not have access to formal education in schools.

In a phone call on Wednesday, May 26, DepEd Surigao del Sur Division Indigenous People Coordinator Danilo Alcantara confirmed the authenticity of the certification. He clarified that it was not an accreditation and that schools can have access to the program even without being part of DepEd’s roster of accredited schools. He also said that ALCADEV was never accredited by DepEd.

Rights group Save Our Schools – a network of child-focused nongovernmental organizations (NGO), church-based groups, and other advocates for children’s right to education – said in 2017 that DepEd refused to renew Lumad schools’ permit to operate. The government maintains that ALCADEV refuses to comply with DepEd’s requirements.

Still, this does not erase the fact that ALCADEV had been coordinating with DepEd before for its alternative learning services and curriculum. The 2016 certification stated that ALCADEV learners qualified for the A&E system were “given intervention by ALS teachers in coordination with the ALCADEV learning facilitators.” ALS teachers are employed by DepEd.

“For ALCADEV, we were in smooth coordination with DepEd’s Alternative Learning System before the Duterte admin. In fact, we were awarded by Literacy Coordinating Council-DepEd with the Most Outstanding Literacy Program in our region in 2014 (and 5th in the Philippines) for the service that we provide,” ALCADEV said in a tweet on June 18, 2020, in response to a question about its affiliation with DepEd.

Alcantara also confirmed the award, and said that it was given to ALCADEV as an NGO.

Under the Duterte administration, schools for Lumad students, including ALCADEV, have faced growing pressure and harassment. The President himself threatened to bomb Lumad schools for supposedly teaching “subversion” and “communism” during a press conference after his second State of the Nation Address in July 2017.

Meanwhile, SEC’s official records match the registration number found on the document that ALCADEV posted. A search of ALCADEV’s company name on the SEC site showed that the school has been filing its general information sheet and audited financial statements since 2006.

Badoy also mentioned Rappler when she made the false claim about ALCADEV, and accused both Rappler and ALCADEV of being either “allies” or “mouthpieces” of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, and the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).

Badoy said that Rappler wrote previous fact check articles about ALCADEV and the Lumad, which she said got her Facebook account suspended. Rappler strongly condemned the baseless and irresponsible red-tagging, and said that it was in no way defending the NPA through its fact checks.

Rappler has debunked at least two false claims about the Lumad. One is a fact-check on a photo claiming ALCADEV was teaching students how to become members of the NPA, and the other is a claim Badoy made herself that the CPP-NPA-NDF invented the term “Lumad” for their personal gain. These are both false.

In separate occasions, Badoy also falsely claimed that the CPP-NPA-NDF coined the term “red-tagging” and that the Kabataan Party list received only around 160,000 votes during the 2019 midterm elections. – Pauline Macaraeg/Rappler.com

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