The proposal to adopt English as medium of instruction from Grade III to other higher levels may be gaining supporters from the congressmen but its enactment really depends on whether the Senate can act on it before the election season.

House Bill (HB) 5619 or the Act Strengthening and Enhancing the Use of English as Medium of Instruction is the consolidated version of all the bills—HB 230 by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, HB 305 by Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas, and HB 406 by Cebu Rep. Raul del Mar—seeking the adoption of English as language used for teaching from Grade 3 up to high school levels.

Gullas, one of the lead sponsors of the HB 5619, told abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak that 213 out of the 237 congressmen have already expressed support for the bill.

The bill has just passed the first reading and is expected to be taken up when Congress resumes its session this month.

“It is as good as approved,” Gullas said, adding that the Congress should pass the legislation since the previous Congress also passed it.

Valenzuela Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo, one of the critics of the bill, said that sponsors of the bill should not be confident that the bill will be passed easily.

“It’s not a walk in the park. Co-authorship is not the same as voting,” Gunigundo told abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak.

Gunigundo is opposing the bill. He believes that first language should be used as the medium of instruction and supports a multi-lingual education system.

Competitiveness

Supporters of House Bill 5619 believe that adopting English as medium would address the problem of declining English proficiency among Filipino students and graduates and improve competitiveness of the Filipino labor pool.

“If we do not change the medium of instruction, then we will continue to have low English proficiency,” Gullas told abs-cbNews.com/Newsbreak.

Declining English proficiency among graduates has put pressure on some industries like the business process outsourcing (BPO) and information technology industries, where there is huge demand for workers who have excellent English skills.

In 2006, the European Chamber of Commerce estimated that 75% of the 400,000 Filipino college graduates have sub-standard English skills.

Gullas, however, said that the bill is not just about jobs in the BPO industry. “This is about arming our future labor force participants with the language skills necessary for them to compete aggressively in all gainful job markets here and abroad.”

Salient points

Among the salient points of the House Bill 5619 are as follows:

• The use of English, Filipino or the regional/native language from pre-school to Grade 3.
• Use of English as the teaching language in all academic subjects from grades 4 to 6, and in all levels of high school.
• Teaching of English and Filipino as separate subjects in all levels of elementary and high school
• Promotion of English as language of interaction.
• Use of English as the language of assessment in all government examinations and in entrance tests of public schools, universities and colleges.

If the bill is enacted, it will replace the bilingual teaching policy implemented by the Department of Education (DepEd) in 1974 through Executive Order No. 25.

Under the bilingual policy, subjects like social studies, values and character education, industrial arts, home economics and physical education were taught in Filipino. Other subjects, however, were taught in English.

Gullas said the bilingual policy weakened English since the subjects that were supposed to be taught in English were actually done in “Tag-lish” or a blend of English and the local dialect.

Enough time now

During the 13th Congress, the House, voting 132-7, approved the bill on third and final reading on September 2006 or less than a year before the May 2007 elections.

The Senate, however, failed to act on the bill because some senators, said Gullas, were already pre-occupied with their re-election bids. He added that the former chair of the Senate committee on education, Senator Juan Flavier, opted to “perform the function of Senate president pro-tempore.”

“The Senate committee on education could not meet regularly,” Gullas said adding that he is more confident that both Houses have ample time to pass the bill this time.

“We still have six months of the second regular session,” he added.

Rep. Mariano Piamonte of the party-list A-TEACHER and a supporter of the bill, however, said that the recent change of leadership and committee chairmanships may prolong the passage of bill in the Senate.

“A change of committee chairmanship means a change in the priorities,” Piamonte told abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak.

Senator Manuel Roxas now heads the senate committee on education, which was chaired by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano before the changes in committee chairmanship happened after Senator Juan Ponce Enrile replaced Manuel Villar as Senate president.

Gullas, however, said that both Houses should pass their version of the bills before the end of 2009.

“2010 is an election year so by January next year congressmen and senators will be busy doing the rounds of provinces in the country,” Gullas said.

‘GMA wants it’

Piamonte, meanwhile, said that if a counterpart bill is passed in the Senate, it will surely be enacted as a law since President Gloria also supports the bill,

“GMA wants it,” Piamonte said. “That’s why she issued Executive Order 210.”

Piamonte was referring to the controversial EO 21O issued by Arroyo in 2003. The order said that English should be taught as a second language starting with Grade 1 and should be taught as the medium of instruction for English, Mathematics and Science from at least Grade 3. Filipino language will be used as medium of instruction for Filipino and Araling Panlipunan.

The order also mandates the use of English as the primary medium of instruction in all public and private secondary schools. The percentage of time allotment for learning areas conducted in English language, it said, should not be less than 70 percent of the total time allotment for all learning areas in the secondary level.
EO 210, however, was questioned by a group of professors and language experts who filed a petition at the Supreme Court.

"While the title of the EO purports to strengthen the use of English as a second language, analyses of the contents show that the EO actually strengthens English as the medium of instruction," the petition said.

Petitioners believed that the (1) EO subverts the present status of Filipino in non-Tagalog areas, and violates the constitutional injunction that the regional language shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction, (2) violates the constitutional duty to initiate and sustain the use of Filipino language in the educational system and (3) "undermines the letter and spirit of the Constitution on the national language. (abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak)

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