George Bernard Shaw said, “Those who say that this thing cannot be done should not ridicule those who are able to do it.” Some solons are wasting time and effort in gathering data biased towards the idea of suspending the implementation of Mother Tongue Based Multi-Lingual Education because Dep Ed is unable to do it properly, maintaining that the promised good learning outcome for children was not realized after ten years of implementation. These solons rebuff data showing that despite MTBMLE’s paltry funding, there is headway made by teachers soldiering on in making readers out of pupils using the child’s first language.

Common sense tells us that MTBMLE fits a multi-lingual country that is part of a large multi-lingual world. In order to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (equitable and inclusive education for all) it is essential to treat our local languages as a resource, and not as a deficit. It is natural and normal in a sovereign republican nation for a child to learn to read in the language commonly used in his home and community. Suspending MTBMLE reverts us to OD Corpuz’s unnatural and colonial bilingual policy (Ministry of Education Order 74, s.1974) which suppresses local languages valued and protected by the 1987 Constitution and laws on language in education.

The problems of training 1 Million teachers and renouncing language parochialism are difficult and intimidating. Billions of pesos must be spent on teacher training and the development of textbooks for 30 Million students. But these are only interim investments vital in inducting the new normal in education to be expected in the reshaping process of the 120-year-old education system fostered by McKinley’s “benevolent assimilation” philosophy. The Israelis succeeded with the almost extinct Yiddish language, and the Welsh triumphed for the repressed Welsh language (The endangered languages that are fighting back, Preston Street Films, June 20, 2023, bbc.co.uk) We can do the same, with grit and political will.

Taft’s little brown brothers threatened that if MTBMLE is implemented, we might end up losing the “English-speaking advantage” of our migrant workers (holding 3D= dirty-dangerous-domestic jobs; which imposes heavy emotional and psychological toll on the OFW’s family), and in the Business Process Outsourcing industry (with all due respect to call center agents, these jobs are “dead-end jobs” with elevated health risks). This misgiving, which is typical of people with small dick energy, hides a presumptuous proposition that the masses should stop pining for better employment and be satisfied with jobs in these unattractive categories in the world of work.

As estimated by Steve Walters, the MTBMLE education system is capable to graduate a greater number of professionals and persons with high-value skills outperforming a mono-lingual or a short-exit bilingual system. It expels the socio-economic inequalities from classrooms. It carries a multiplier effect enlarging the socio-economic middle class emancipated from poverty. The profile of Philippine society becomes a standing rectangle signifying dynamic social mobility, not a pyramid with static social mobility.

Bro. Andrew Gonzales, FSC, respected linguist and former Secretary of Education, said, “It is not so important to me now work abroad or the ability of Filipinos to compete academically abroad (their number is small), we should not gear up the entire education system for the intellectual and economically well off; they can take care of themselves as they have always done throughout space and time…. we need English for our intellectuals and scholars, but not all Filipinos need it.” Instead of twiddling one’s thumbs and mocking teachers and other stakeholders working for MTBMLE, multi-millionaire solons belonging to political dynasties should marshal the intensification of funding for the implementation of MTBMLE so that once in a while, the interest of the lowborn masses gets to override their highborn greediness.

Atty. Magi Gunigundo is a former lawmaker, civil law instructor, and author of law books. He is also an education reformer and an advocate of anticipatory governance.