MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) dropped the phrase “God-loving” in its reworded vision statement, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said yesterday.
In a statement, CBCP president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas said DepEd once envisioned developing “functionally literate and God-fearing Filipinos,” but in the 2013 version, “there is no more mention of God.”
He said a vision statement is not an empty platitude – it guides the articulation of policy and plans of action.
“This respect for pluralism does not compel civil society to expunge the name of God from public life, especially when the majority of Filipinos continue to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and to trust in Divine Providence,” Villegas said.
He added that “the attitude of our laws in the Philippines towards religion is characterized as ‘benevolent neutrality,’ the accommodation of religion whenever such accommodation does not offend law or public policy.”