Within a span of two years, Rep. Roman Romulo, House Committee Chair on Basic Education, and Rep. Mark Go, House Committee on Technical and Higher Education, have made repeated attempts to discard MTB-MLE from RA 10533 on account of lack of learning materials. We denounce this latest attempt as nothing but pandering in its crudest form to the illusions of Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s imagined English speaking (but not understanding) nation of fifth graders.
Scrapping, guised in the form of suspension, or suspension which will lead to discontinuation, will never address the issue on “competitive education” and “lack of materials,” as the explanatory note of HB 2188 myopically tries to reduce what ails Philippine basic education. The suspension does not, and will never, guarantee quality learning, or improvement in our PISA ranking in the next cycle, or any standardized testing using English for that matter. As an ill-thought-out measure, suspension is diversionary and does not contribute to transformative reform. It is degenerative. It is akin to killing the wrong suspect without the benefit of an impartial trial.
Rep. Go’s attempt via amendment to the lapsed and month-old RA 11899, the Second Congressional Commission on Education, is an unintelligent, lazy, and desperate act at preempting whatever sensible recommendations EDCOM II may produce after a comprehensive assessment of the state of Philippine basic, technical, and higher education.
The Supreme Court has affirmed with finality the constitutionality of the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction and this serves as a permanent injunction on any future attempt at pilfering parts or the entirety of RA 10533, of which MTB-MLE is embodied and serves as the only salient provision of the law if compared to other K-12 systems.
The introduction of MTB-MLE is based on data and evidence and built on rigorous empirical research and longitudinal studies, and favorable results from field practice. Refusal to look at evidence in favor of MTB-MLE for decades is what brought us where we are today in education outcomes. Ironically, it was only in 2009 under the “English only” president, Gloria Arroyo, that DepEd opened its evidence-resistant doors to MTB-MLE by issuing Department Order No. 74, which allowed pilot implementation in selected schools in the country.
MTB-MLE is founded on equity and inclusion. The previous restrictive bilingual policy left many learners unable to cope with the exclusionary MOI that also brought down literacy levels and erased learners’ identity. The entire Section 5 of RA 10533 is a guarantee that all school-age children in the country are given access to inclusive and equitable basic education. This guarantee is our commitment to the universal rights of our learners to be instructed in their own language.
We are fully aware of operational issues in the policy, issues that can be addressed without suspending MTB-MLE or removing a single letter in the law. The proposed suspension is a lazy excuse to blame and penalize sound policy for flawed implementation. MTB-MLE cannot be the scapegoat for the failure of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on the Enhanced Basic Educational Program (K to 12 Program) to exercise its oversight powers early on considering the disruption that RA 10533 bears on the entire education system.
The assessment made by the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS) documented flaws in the implementation, but the study never considered suspension, nor abrogation as a solution. The long list of issues, in fact, should lead to more inquiry on how to improve policy implementation. We note problems in governance and organizational arrangements that need to be addressed, as well as issues in the delivery of quality training and technical assistance, periodic assessment and monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and strengthening collaborative partnerships with stakeholders at all levels.
Suspension provides the basis for eventual cancellation, leading to reversion to the old bilingual policy, which we discarded for equity, access, and inclusionary issues that run counter to the provisions of our fundamental law and practices in linguistic communities across the country.
The suspension is scapegoating from the larger problems in education. The larger problems are in standards setting, governance, monitoring and evaluation, lack of data for decision-making, resource allocation and capacity absorption, which all affect education outcomes. With this recurring attempt at eventual cancellation in the form of suspension, we are adding defective policymaking as among the most serious problems in Philippine education.
We enjoin both committee chairs to expedite convening of the EDCOM II where material discussion on issues affecting the entire education sector are to be dealt with thoroughly with experts whose critical findings and recommendations based on reliable data will reshape policies in the coming years. Therefore, House Bills 2188 and 3925 are premature as these preempt the more conclusive findings and recommendations the EDCOM II will make.
The joint committee is better off compelling DepEd to formulate catch up measures to fully implement MTB-MLE and to conduct real, honest monitoring and evaluation to generate data to better address gaps in its implementation.
There are mid- and long-term sectoral and regional development goals that demand more time for congressional committees on education to work on, and suspension of MTB-MLE certainly is not one of them. Congress should focus on teacher education and teacher quality, especially after passing the Excellence in Teacher Education Act. It’s not too late for both committees to really take up more important issues in education other than playing with children’s right to be instructed in the language they understand.
170+ TALAYTAYAN MLE, INC.
August 27, 2022.
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