“We are afraid the module writing practices will literally put the legitimate authors to a great disadvantage, both professional and economic, as experienced in the sale of our books, and attested by our partner publishing companies,” ayon sa grupo.
Iginiit ng grupo na ang kanilang mga libro na dumaan sa masusing pag-edit at revision ay papalitan lamang ng modules na anila’y “very poor versions” ng mga lehitimong libro.
“Further, our authors, who are subject area experts and with the required experience of crafting quality instructional materials such as the textbooks, might be deprived of their financial rewards, because their intellectual properties are now being pirated, printed and distributed to learners, either for a fee or for free,” dagdag pa nito.
Narito ang bahagi ng liham kung saan inilathala ang resulta ng obserbasyon at panayam ng grupo sa mga guro at iba pang opisyal ng DepEd sa iba’t ibang rehiyon:
“1. With schools resorting to the online and modular approaches as mandated by the said DepEd Order, teachers are required to prepare and submit modules before private schools are allowed to operate for this school year;
2. With very minimal to no training at all on module writing, with the very limited time to prepare the modules before the start of classes for the school year, and the number of modules to prepare based on the number of preparations, teachers have to recourse to the easiest and the fastest way of finishing the tasks, and that is to copy paste from already existing materials, either from the internet, and/or from books which most of our member authors have conscientiously written.”
3. That although teachers cite our authored books as their reference, we believe there are still grave violations of our rights as provided in the copyright law. Substantial and sizeable parts of our published books are copied en toto or copied and pasted with no attempts of expressing concepts on their own words;
4. There are also some inconsistencies in the manner by which the module requirement is implemented in the different divisions of even the same regions by DepEd officials which we believe add to our dilemma:
4.1 Some schools are allowed to prescribe textbooks alongside the modules which we believe is a duplication. The textbooks written by our member authors are already sufficient references for the different subject areas having fully complied with the K to 12 curriculum guides and the most essential learning competencies(MELC) as set by the DepEd;
4.2 Other schools would be required the modules only, no textbooks allowed for sale, for reasons such as “they are using the modular approach, therefore, they should be using modules only, which sounds logical, but this is where most of the infringement of the copyright law takes place; and
4.3 Others would be required the Learner’s Activity Sheets, and use textbooks as the main references of the learners, which to our mind is a win-win practice for our member authors and the teachers.”
Dagdag pa ng grupo, hindi nila maintindihan kung bakit hindi na gagamitin ang mga librong isinulat ng kanilang member authors bilang text at reference books para sa distance learning, at kinailangan pang palitan ng mga guro ng modules.
Dahil dito, narito ang bahagi ng liham kung saan inilahad ng grupo ang kanilang mga rekomendasyon sa DepEd:
“1. To issue a stern warning to all, especially the private schools, to stop the module writing practices that infringe on the copyright of the legitimate authors;
2. To issue a clear cut uniform requirement on the type of teaching – learning materials to be prepared and submitted by private schools to be used by the learners under the new normal which follows #4.3 above with relatively enough space for the private schools and the teachers to exercise their academic freedom particularly in the preparation of instructional materials.
3. To come up with a list of books in the different subject areas, preferably written by the members of the Samahan ng Mga Manunulat na Pilipino, to be used as basic references for the modular and online distance learning modalities.”
Sa gitna ng pandemya, iginiit ng grupo na kailangan ding makabangon ng mga manunulat.