By Estanislao Albano Jr.
In a statement responding to claims linking the alleged mass promotion policy of the Department of Education (DepEd) to the staggering incidence of functionally illiterate high school graduates reported by the Philippine Statistical Authority (PSA), Education Secretary Juan Edgardo Angara clarified that the agency does not have a policy of automatically passing learners. He, however, admitted that there are features in the DepEd system which may be putting silent pressure on schools and teachers to pass students regardless of performance. He vowed to take corrective action.
While Angara may be correct that there is no official mass promotion policy, on the other hand, he must also acknowledge that the agency has an official policy which could have prevented the unmitigated disaster of the 18.9 million functionally illiterate junior and senior high school graduates but which the DepEd is adamantly refusing to enforce. I am referring to DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 which, as worded in DepEd Memorandum No. 324, s. 2004, “enforces the policy that every child should be a reader by Grade III and that no pupil shall be promoted to the next higher grade unless he/she manifests mastery of the basic literacy skills.”
Obviously, had the DepEd been applying the policy, no learner would reach Grade 10, much less Grade 12 still functionally illiterate. Already basically literate by Grade 3, there is more than ample time for learners to transition to functional literacy before they graduate from junior high school let alone senior high school. DepEd itself agrees with this conclusion because the K to 12 Curriculum provides that a learner be basically literate by Grade 3 and functionally literate by Grade 6.
The failure of the DepEd to enforce DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 is deliberate. In 2006, then Secretary Jesli Lapus had implicitly admitted that one reason for the declining literacy during that period was the non-implementation of DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002. In his presentation of the proposed 2007 DepEd budget, Lapus had included the enforcement of the “no promotion of non-readers beyond Grade 3” policy as one of the ways of building foundational skills “for learning how to learn” among Grades 1-3 pupils (“Education For All: A Functionally-Literate Philippines!”).
But for unknown reasons, Lapus himself did not enforce DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 and neither did former Secretaries Armin Luistro, Leonor Briones and Sara Duterte and now Angara. These officials have no excuse for their refusal to apply the policy because just like in the case of the alleged mass promotion policy, there is no DepEd issuance rescinding DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002.
Added proof that the policy is standing is from 2018 to 2024, the following DepEd field offices have posted online their “No Read, No Move” policies which explicitly cite DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 as basis: DepEd-Cordillera Administrative Region (Regional Memorandum No. 013.2020; DepEd-Region 10 (Regional Memorandum No. 153, s. 2020); DepEd-Cabuyao City Schools Division (Memorandum No. 537, s. 2023); DepEd-Batangas Schools Division (Memorandum No. 013, s. 2024); DepEd-Dagupan City Schools Division (Memorandum No. 99, s. 2024).
The DepEd central office also has again indirectly confirmed the active status of DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 when it included in DepEd Order No. 012, s. 2025 the administration of the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) reading assessment test among the school activities from SY 2025-2026 onwards. Per DepEd Memorandum No. 324, s. 2004, the Phil-IRI and DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002 are both supporting mechanisms of the Every Child a Reader Program, an old reading program of the DepEd.
If Angara is therefore serious about stopping the mass promotion practice and rescuing literacy, he should order the strict enforcement of DepEd Order No. 45, s. 2002. Otherwise it would be very clear that just like his predecessors, he also approves of mass promotion despite his big words to the contrary. He had boldly declared in the statement that promotion must be earned and must come with real learning. (Published in the May 16, 2025 Philippine Daily Inquirer)**
