A critical analysis of Senate Bill 722 otherwise known as the “Anti-‘No Permit No Exam’ Act of 2016”

Abstract

This study was a critical analysis of SB 722 otherwise known as the “Anti-No Permit No Exam Act of 2016” it aimed to determine the pros and cons in the passage of the said bill, the merit of the legal and non-legal arguments for and against the passage of the bill. The study aimed to shed light pertaining the legal intricacies surrounding the Bill and hopefully would serve as a reliable resource material for future studies and legislators considering that the “No Permit No Exam Policy” is a perennial source of distress for students and parents alike, in which studies have shown that there is a direct link with the said policy and student drop-outs, decreased school enrolments and even student prostitution. The study included news and magazine articles, published through printed media or through internet media from well-established news agencies, published master’s and doctoral thesis, collegiate text books, official publications by the agencies of the Philippine government, and reports by notable non-government organizations in order to be dear and certain as to the credibility of the reports, news, information being cited. Due to the study being a pure critical analysis of Senate Bill 722, the researcher opted to make use of the qualitative research method to substantiate the legal arguments of the stakeholders for or against the passage of the bill as the scholarly sources of news articles and legal jurisprudence could suffice. The researcher found that among the recovered arguments surrounding the proposed SB 722, there are more tenable legal arguments in favor for the passage of the bill, than there are against it. However, there is only one sore error in the construction of SB 722, is that it penalizes HEIs only and does not include penalizing Primary and Secondary Level Educational Institutions and that if passed, the said bill would certainly violate the equal protection clause as the three Academic Institutions are ail equally situated with HEIs, however, only HEIs are penalized in the said SB 722. In order to remedy this possible constitutional violation, SB 722 must be amended to include penalizing Primary and Secondary Level Educational Institutions in the practice of the “No Permit No Exam Policy”.