Union calls for disaster-resilient infrastructure, school repairs, digital connectivity, and meaningful curriculum consultation ahead of June 8 class opening
As the school year 2026–2027 opens on June 8, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers – Cordillera Administrative Region Union (ACT-CAR) has resolved to persistently raise and push for resolution of the perennial unpreparedness that marks each new school year in Cordillera schools. The union will advocate for improvements in the areas DepEd-CAR itself has identified as critical to quality learning: disaster-resilient infrastructure, basic facility repairs, and digital connectivity. ACT-CAR also called on DepEd to ensure adequate teacher preparation and instructional materials for the newly imposed three-term program, and reiterated its challenge to DepEd’s ongoing pattern of implementing major education reforms without consulting teachers on the ground.
Infrastructure Gaps
“Year in, year out, DepEd always starts each school year unprepared, with so many deficiencies in basic infrastructure,” said ACT-CAR Union President Joel Capulong. According to DepEd-CAR’s own May 2026 report, the region needs 1,964 additional classrooms but only 149 are targeted for completion this year, with the rest pushed to 2030. Beyond classrooms, many schools lack functional comfort rooms, faculty rooms, libraries, and laboratories. Basic services such as clean water for health and sanitation, and electric fans to cope with a rising heat index, are also absent in numerous campuses. The disaster-prone region also has to be prepared for typhoons and consequent slides and flooding, earthquakes and other disaster effects of many destructive projects.
Digital Connectivity
Digital connectivity, an education requirement for wider exposure and learning facilitation, is a big problem for the Cordillera mountainous terrain. Between 400 and 500 public schools still have no reliable internet connection, and many areas remain complete “dead zones” despite an overall regional penetration rate of 74.21%. This makes some government remedies largely ineffective: the Department of Information and Communications Technology’s Bayanihan Sim Card Initiative, which distributed 48,000 data-loaded SIM cards to learners, offers little benefit where there is no signal to begin with. While remedies like pre-downloaded materials help, these are an additional burden on teachers who have to look for signal to work.
Brigada Eskwela
ACT-CAR acknowledged the vital role of Brigada Eskwela in helping schools prepare for the new year, but cautioned against treating community volunteerism as a substitute for government responsibility. “While we are happy and grateful for community assistance and mobilization, we need to remind ourselves that infrastructure is primarily a government concern. The resources needed for real, lasting repairs cannot come from parents and communities already struggling amid a continuing economic crisis,” said Regional Coordinator Louise Montenegro.
Curriculum Reforms Without Teacher Consultation
The union also raised alarm over the rapid implementation of curriculum reforms without meaningful consultation with classroom teachers. Capulong cited the K-12 program and the Matatag curriculum as examples of top-down changes that have drawn widespread criticism from teachers and education experts. Promised benefits of K-12, like having job-ready graduates, have not been proven true as companies and institutions continue to prefer college graduates for manpower. Montenegro added that these reforms align with the priorities of foreign education funders rather than the needs and development aspirations of the Filipino people.
Structural Solutions Required
ACT-CAR maintains that the persistent crises in Philippine education stem from two root causes: the government’s failure to allocate the internationally recommended 6% of GDP to education, and its subordination of education policy to external dictates. ACT-CAR joins its national counterpart and regional chapters across the country in calling for the education budget to be raised to this standard, and for the development of education reforms that reflect the Philippines’ own challenges, needs, and aspirations.
“Only then,” the union declared, “can we decisively resolve the many problems confronting education in this country.”
ACT-CAR Union represents teachers in the Cordillera Administrative Region and is affiliated with the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines.
