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See all the wonderful things ANNE CLARISSE BERMUDEZ has made

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In the Philippines, the tertiary education level is handled by the Commission on Higher Education or CHED and not by the Department of Education which handles the primary and secondary education level.

The education system in the country is deeply influenced by the colonial history of the Philippines. The local education system follows the education system of the Americans, subjects taught are greatly impacted by the Spanish, Japanese, and other periods of colonisation. The said influence by the colonisers to the country is still manifested in today’s time with the plan of removing Filipino as a subject in the tertiary level and the motive of teaching the Korean language among high school students.

The issue isn’t simply the removal of the subject in the tertiary level. It goes way beyond that. It is about the lack of nationalism. It would result to the destruction and disappearance of the Philippine culture and identity. Most schools and universities choose to teach their students English as they believe it would enable them to get employed quicker and communicate towards people of different nationalities. Yes, it would be great if the Filipinos can speak English fluently but would not it be better if they can speak their own language first? It has been a long time issue that most Filipinos coming from well-off, famous families cannot speak Filipino in a straight sentence. The removal of the subject would also result to the loss of jobs for thousands of the Filipino teachers. The government is the most expected to lead in sustaining the Filipino culture and identity but with their plan of removing a subject that celebrates one’s own culture and heritage through education, they failed to protect what the heroes sacrificed their lives for. In CHED’s defense, their plan of removing and replacing Filipino in the college level is because its said redundancy and duplication as the subject was taught since pre-school to high school. Indeed, their reason is practical. However, instead of removing the subject, why not change and improve the curriculum and the outline so the topics to be studied won’t be repetitive? It is their duty anyways along with DepEd. Besides, English is also being taught since elementary up until college but focuses on different aspects per level. Why cannot we do the same for Filipino? The preservation of culture and history must always be considered alongside the fast pacing of development and progress. According to a statistics by CHED, there are over seven thousand foreign students enrolled in many different universities in the country. For that reason, they do not see the importance of the subject for the foreign nationals. They are too blinded by their ambitious goals that they cannot see that teaching Filipino in universities where there are many enrolled foreigners can be an avenue to enrich and spread our culture the same way others’ culture are spreading in the country now. The thing that infuriates most citizens now is the plan of teaching the Korean language in the high school level. Why do the Filipinos need to learn that language? What good will it bring? Most college students now do not even know the basics of Filipino grammar and it is a reflection of how poor Filipino is being taught in the primary and secondary levels.

The simplest explanation of how bad the situation is, is the fact that Filipino is becoming a foreign language to most of the youth in today’s generation. To summarize, the subject must be retained in the tertiary level of education because as mentioned by Michael Tan in his essay piece, “If we want a national language, and respect for all our Philippine languages, our young must grow up hearing and using these languages as part of daily practice—not just for casual conversations but as the language of transaction for science, business, the arts.  It must be a daily practice that becomes part of us, part of the way we think, and live.”

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Why not teach Baybayin— a unique treasure of our language that we know nothing about?

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Why not teach Baybayin— a unique treasure of our language that we know nothing about?

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What is the point of studying another language when we have an incredibly one-of-a-kind language of our own? (photo source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/comments/8fd3p5/modern_baybayin/)

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photo source: http://manila-photos.blogspot.com/2010/02/same-old-same-old.html