Diploma Mills, Inc.: Where Teachers Pay to Fail and Students Suffer the Bill

CHEd Stamps, Teachers Bleed, Kids Learn Nothing: The Full Fraud Cycle

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — November 3, 2025

Dream vs. Dumpster Fire: The Teacher Who Wanted to Fly (But Got Sold a Paper Plane)

Imagine a dedicated public school teacher in Samar—call her Ma’am Luz—rising at 4 a.m. to prepare lessons under a flickering bulb. She dreams of a Master’s in Education that will transform her classroom into a launchpad for young minds. This is the promise of advanced learning: mastery, dignity, a nation that invests in its future.

Now meet the grubby reality, exposed by the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2): Ma’am Luz spends her salary on weekend “seminars” in a rented Metro Manila office, submits a thesis copied from the internet, and “earns” a degree that 80% of her peers never finish on time (Inquirer, 2025). Her diploma? A promotion coupon. Her students? Still failing basic math.

What a triumph of policy design: a system meant to elevate teachers that instead crowns credentialed clowns.

Anatomy of a National Embarrassment: Bureaucrats Build a Fraud Factory

Let’s autopsy this disaster with a scalpel dipped in acid.

1. The “Genius” Incentive Model (aka Laziness in Uniform)

The Department of Education (DepEd) awards 10 promotion points for a master’s degree—whether from the University of the Philippines (UP) or a school that exists only on a Facebook page. The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) stamps “recognized” and looks away. This isn’t oversight. It’s institutional malpractice—a slap in the face to every teacher who actually studied.

2. The Diploma Mill Industrial Complex

Over 50% of graduate enrollments (2012–2024) were in education, concentrated in private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Metro Manila (EDCOM 2 Study). Completion rate? ~8 out of 10 students fail to finish within the prescribed period—two years for master’s, four for PhD. These aren’t universities. They’re credential vending machines.

3. The Body Count

Students: Taught by “Dr.” Fraud who can’t spell “pedagogy.”
Real Teachers: Mocked by colleagues with Quiapo-bought PhDs.
The Republic: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields starved, public education rotting from the core.

Theater of the Pathetic: Defending the Undefendable with a Straight Face

EDCOM 2’s Case: “Stop paying for garbage, and the garbage men go bankrupt.”
Logic so airtight it hurts.

Excuse	Barok’s Scalpel
“This will hurt poor teachers!”	The current system already pickpockets them—P100,000 for a worthless scroll. That’s a tax on hope. Stop treating teachers like children who can’t spot a scam.
“Small schools will close!”	If your business is selling fake degrees, then yes—shut down. This isn’t “harsh.” It’s hygiene.

Operation Clean House: How to Fix This in 90 Days (If Anyone Had a Spine)

Stop whining. Start doing. Here’s the no-excuses plan:

1. CHEd: Stop Being a Rubber Stamp

Launch a public tiered ranking of graduate programs. Name the mills. Shame them.
Form a Regulatory Strike Force with power to revoke licenses in 90 days flat.

2. DepEd: Burn the Point System, Build a Merit Machine

Decouple promotion from paper. Replace with:
- Classroom impact scores
- Student learning gains
- Peer-reviewed teaching portfolios
Degrees count only from CHEd white-listed programs.

3. Government: Stop Talking, Start Funding

Full-ride STEM grad scholarships (tied to 5 years public school service).
Seed regional campuses of UP, Ateneo, and De La Salle to smash the Metro Manila cartel.

Apocalypse Now or Never: Choose Your Future, Philippines

Do nothing, and here’s your tomorrow:

A permanent underclass of illiterate kids taught by fake doctors.
A teaching profession where “PhD” means “Paid huge Dough.”
A nation importing engineers because we trained a generation to chase points, not progress.

This isn’t prophecy. It’s math.

To the teachers: You are not the problem. You are the solution being sabotaged.
To the bureaucrats: Your silence is complicity.
To the diploma mills: Your countdown has begun.