A country with nearly a fifth of its population considered functionally illiterate, with another five percent suffering from basic illiteracy is headed for disaster.
The problem should be causing as much alarm as the possibility of a magnitude 7.2 ‘Big One’ earthquake devastating Metro Manila if the West Valley Fault wakes up from half a millennium of slumber.
Last week, the Second Congressional Commission on Education warned that the number of functionally illiterate Filipinos had nearly doubled in the past 30 years, from 14.5 million in 1993 during EDCOM 1 to 24.8 million in 2024.
EDCOM 2 raised the issue as it expressed concern that one of the reasons was the involvement of the Department of Education in at least 261 interagency bodies, which has diverted DepEd from its principal mandate of providing basic education.
Public school teachers themselves have lamented the many roles tacked on to their basic mandate as educators. They are plucked from classrooms to assist in social welfare activities, health and sanitation campaigns, sporting events, election-related tasks, disaster relief, patronage gimmickry of politicians and even assistance after fires.
In May this year, the Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media study conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority showed that 18.9 million students who graduated from senior high school between 2019 and 2024 were functionally literate – meaning while they could read, write and compute, they had poor reading comprehension and could not apply school lessons to practical uses in everyday life.
Another 5.86 million Filipinos aged 10 to 64 belonged to the ‘basic illiterate’ group of people who are unable to read, write or compute.
That’s a lot of illiterate Filipinos, many of them youths who will soon be inheriting the country. As of last July, the national population stood at 112.73 million, as officially declared by Malacañang.
Not surprisingly, the problem is worst in the poorest parts of the country, with the highest functional illiteracy recorded in Tawi-Tawi and Davao Occidental. It is no coincidence that poverty is lowest in places where functional illiteracy is also low.
Apart from teachers being distracted by too many roles outside education, the current corruption scandal has shown that kickbacks trump Filipinos’ education when it comes to the funding priorities of government.
Those behind the kickbacks find it useful to maintain high illiteracy and poverty rates, which make it easy to fool the people and keep the masses dependent on political patronage and tax-funded ayuda for survival.
Philippine education is in a state of emergency, calling for urgent and decisive action. A nation whose future is left in the hands of illiterates and a ruling elite cabal of greedy crooks is doomed.