Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte did not mince words when she hit back at the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Party-list for its suggestion to hire 30,000 public school teachers and construct new classrooms to address the education crisis in the country.

In a statement, Duterte called the group “a fake representative of learners and teachers in Congress” because it failed to criticize the clash between the military and the New People’s Army (NPA) in Masbate that started last week.

That clash, she noted, affected six towns in the province that led to the suspension of face-to-face classes of 55,000 learners and 2,815 teaching personnel.

“ACT Teachers would have publicly and strongly condemned this act of NPA terrorism, given its blistering impact on the efforts of DepEd and our partners to remedy the education problems,” her statement read.

“But the group has masterfully redirected the public's attention from Masbate to its outrageous suggestions for DepEd,” ahe added.

Hiding “under the blanket of red-tagging” is a tactic used by ACT Party-list, Duterte claimed, when “its real political agenda (is) exposed to the public.”

The Vice President asked the group to “stop dropping the victim card around the table” when they are called out as alleged “sympathizers” and “supporters” of the NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

“We should only take ACT Teachers seriously if it publicly condemns NPA atrocities in Masbate and all other NPA terroristic activities that hampered the learning of children across the country,” she said.

Meanwhile, Duterte maintained that the Department of Education (DepEd), which she heads in a concurrent capacity, “is not blind to the problems besetting the education system.”

Solutions, she added, have already been identified in the Basic Education Report delivered last Jan. 2023.

And while hiring teachers and staff and building classrooms are part of the solutions, the Vice President stressed that the “DepEd should not only be limited to dispensing old-fashioned solutions but must also innovate.”

“May I reiterate that ACT Teachers suggestions were both unrealistic and impossible — presented to shame the government and deceive the public into believing that the hiring of teachers and increasing the education budget were their ideas,” she said.

Her statement came after House Deputy Minority leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro said that classroom and teacher shortage are “glaring facts that the DepEd has to effectively address and no amount of red tagging can cover up these problems.”