First published in the author's column in The Standard

On June 12, 1898, General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed independence after more than 400 years of Spanish colonial rule. It was on this day that the Philippine flag was officially unfurled for the first time as the Marcha Nacional Filipina was being played by the band of San Francisco de Malabon. Although the Philippine independence of 1898 was abortive because it was eventually snatched from the Filipino revolutionaries with the coming of the Americans, it nonetheless signaled the forging of the Filipino national identity and sense of nationhood. It was an imperfect revolution, as we now know, with its leaders coming from the middle class having only modest political goals. These leaders certainly did not Include the liberation of the masses from their economic and social bondage, which would have been an act against self-interest for them.

One thing that the Philippine revolution did show was that the pen was mightier than the sword. We know how Jose Rizal’s novels - El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere - inspired and encouraged the Filipinos to stand up against colonial repression and to assert their equality vis-a-vis the Spanish colonizers.  His execution as a result of his “subversive” novels galvanized Andres Bonifacio and the Katipuneros into action, triggering the Philippine Revolution of 1896. Clearly, it is the possession of knowledge that propels one into action.

As Kofi Annan says “Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.” In an ever-competitive global community characterized by fast paced technological advancement such as ours, knowledge is power and the key to advancement and opportunity. Knowledge can best be acquired through education. For this reason, every civilized nation allocates a lion’s share of its national budget for education. The best economies make it a priority to advance quality education. In particular, the Philippine enshrines in its Constitution its duty to “protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels, and take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.” Among the measures taken to reach this objective is to “assign the highest budgetary priority to education.” Accordingly, out of the P2.265-trillion National Budget for 2014, the Department of Education has been given biggest budget among all national government agencies, with a 2014 allocation amounting to P309.43 billion.

The most significant development however in the education sector is the adoption of the K to 12 program. According to the government website on K-12, the program covers Kindergarten and 12 years of basic education (six years of primary education, four years of Junior High School, and two years of Senior High School [SHS]) “to provide sufficient time for mastery of concepts and skills, develop lifelong learners, and prepare graduates for tertiary education, middle-level skills development, employment, and entrepreneurship.” One argument for K-12 is that the Philippines, as pointed out by the government, is the last country in Asia and one of only three countries worldwide (the other two being Angola and Djibouti) with a 10-year pre-university cycle. The net effect is that Filipino students cannot compete with their counterparts in a number of academic areas math, languages and science. To be globally competitive in the 21th century it is imperative to provide Filipino students the competence and skills at par or even better than those in other countries. 

As expected, there are those who oppose this change on the ground that adding two more years to basic education would create additional burden to families, especially the poor. Opponents also contend that the country is not ready for K-12; we do not have the teachers, we do not have the classrooms, and we do not have the resources. There is also the concern that many college teachers and staff could lose their jobs during the transition. As a result of this objection, several lawsuits have now been filed to stop the implementation of K-12.

While acknowledging the legitimacy of these concerns, all of which are essentially transition related, I hope the Supreme Court would stay out of this policy decision that the Executive and Legislative branches have decided after considerable debate.

The fact is we cannot deny Filipino students the minimum standards held globally just because we still need more classrooms, textbooks and other such things. Implementation of a major undertaking such as K-12 will never be seamless and hitches are always expected. But I cannot foresee impediments in its implementation that will prove insurmountable. The bottom line is: If we do not start now, when? To postpone K-12 for another day means that our educational system will lag farther behind our Asean neighbors and the rest of the world.

In a perfect world, as in the case of the Conditional Cash Transfer program, I would have wished for better K-12 implementation, from planning to execution, among others for more phased implementation where we start reform processes with a pilots in a few schools to scaling them up first to a few cities, provinces and regions, and then finally nationwide. In China, they always do it that way and typically major reforms are undertaken with a minimum of 10 years from the original policy decision to full scaling up. But that’s water under the bridge; the cat is out of the bag and we must proceed full speed ahead, problem-solving whatever issues have to be dealt with.

Fortunately, we have an excellent Department of Education leadership team led by Secretary Armin Luistro FSC who will pull us through the challenges of implementing K-12. Brother Armin has gathered together one of the best set of managers I have seen in any administration; with such exemplary, innovative and dedicated Undersecretaries and Assistant Secretaries such as Dina Ocampo, Lino Rivera, Mario Derequito, Francis Varela, Armando Ruiz, Albert Muyot, Rey Laguda, Tonisito Umali, and Jesus Mateo. More importantly behind the Deped leadership team is a battle-worn and resilient bureaucracy of educational managers and teachers who have what it takes to get us through this difficult transition.

The Philippine revolution of 1896 has been described as a failure, as incomplete, our independence as a sham. Today, if our people are to be really liberated from poverty and powerlessness, getting the right education is critical. My hope is that a successful implementation of the K-12 reform program can help us get there. Then we can say, as Rizal’s Pilosopo Tasyo hoped, that education gave us true independence.