Have an open mind and drop your habit of red-tagging.

Makabayan solon ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro directed this advice to the Department of Education (DepEd) amid what she described as serious, persisting problems in the education sector.

"Our call for hiring 30,000 new teachers and constructing 50,000 new classrooms yearly, until 2028, to eradicate teacher and classroom shortages and improve education quality are perfectly legitimate and logical demands," Castro said in a statement Wednesday, March 29.

"In fact, the past two administrations were able to get near these targets as the Aquino administration hired an average of 29,166 teachers per year and even the administration of the current vice-president and concurrent [DepEd] secretary's father was able to hire 25,000 teachers per year," noted the deputy minority leader.

Castro was obviously referring to Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The lady solon apparently took issue with Vice President Duterte's "can't do" attitude on the problem on teachers and classrooms.

"Ilang taon na ring panawagan ito ng ACT Teachers Party-list at ang pangmasang organisasyon na Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines sa mga nagdaang administrasyon at may iba-ibang lebel ng kanilang pagtugon dito pero ngayon lang nangyari na sabihin ng DepEd secretary mismo na ang mga panawagang ito ay 'unrealistic and impossible' (ACT Teachers Party-list and the civil organization Alliance of Concerned Teachers Philippines have sought this for years before past administrations and they given different levels of response; it's only now that the DepEd secretary herself have branded these calls as unrealistic and impossible')," Castro said.

"Malinaw sa kasyasayan na kaya itong magawa, ibukas lang sana ang isipan at wag puro red-tagging ang inaatupag (History has clearly shown that these are doable, they only need an open mind and to stop their habit of red-tagging)," added the teacher-solon, without naming any person.

Vice President Duterte and the militant Makabayan bloc have been embroiled in a word war ever since the former took over the reins as DepEd chief last year.

The Vice President has said in the past that the Makabayan has ties to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), which the Philippine government considers terrorists.

In the Wednesday statement, Castro accused DepEd of "diverting attention from the burning issues of the education sector".