LIBRT FILIPINO SUBJECT BE REMOVED AS A COLLEGE CORE SUBJECT

"General Education Curriculum: Holistic Understandings, Intellectual and Civic Competencies"

CHED MEMORANDUM NO. 20, SERIES OF 2013.

At the onset, let it be said that critics have reduced CHED Memorandum Order No. 20 to an order merely
to remove Filipino/Tagalog as a core subject and that the same CMO has reduced the national language
in jeopardy. The truth, ladies and gentlemen and this honorable tribunal, it has not.

Let it be said that CHED Memorandum Order No. 20 is entitled as “"General Education Curriculum: Holistic
Understandings, Intellectual and Civic Competencies". It is, thus, not an order to solely and exclusively
remove Filipino/Tagalog as a core subject. Rather, it is an order to work more on specialized learning or
on a particular discipline. CMO No. 20, therefore, is a move towards learning competency-based standards
by limiting the General Education Curriculum (GEC) to 36 units.

On the affirmative side, we shall set the parameters of the debate on CHED Memorandum Order no. 20
and its application in the Philippine education system.

As the first speaker, I will be discussing the necessity of the implementation of CMO No. 20. The second
speaker will be arguing its beneficiality and the third speaker will be arguing its practicability.

NECESSITY

On the issue of necessity, the implementation of CMO No. 20 is necessary based on one main point:
TO ADDRESS POOR EDUCATION SYSTEM OF THE PHILIPPINES

On to my argument Mr. Chair, it is the position of the affirmative side that the implementation of CMO
20 is necessary to improve the education system of the Philippines.

TO ADDRESS POOR EDUCATION SYSTEM OF THE PHILIPPINES

CMO No. 20 should be assessed vis-à-vis the educational reforms in the Philippines including the K-12
program. Prior to its implementation, the Philippines was the only country in Asia, and one of only a few
in the world, to have a basic education system of just 10 years, thus affecting student’s global
competitiveness.

At a forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship for a Globally Competitive Philippines, the co-
chairman of the National Competitiveness Council (NCC), Mr. Guillermo M. Luz, presented the disturbing
results of the 2010-2011 Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum, which showed
that the Philippines only fared better than Cambodia, among the eight Southeast Asian countries that
were surveyed in the field of education.

In all categories, the Philippines was falling behind Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand
and Vietnam. The Philippines ranks a poor seventh among nine Southeast Asian nations in the area of
education and innovation. According to the 2013-2014 World Economic Forum (WEF) Global
Competitiveness report. Out of 148 countries worldwide, the Philippines climbed two notches since 2012,
ranking 96th. However, this is still a far leap from neighbors Singapore (2nd), Brunei (23rd), and Malaysia
(33rd) which fared well.
 With all these problems in the education system, CMO No. 20 together with the K-12 program has
been put into action as part of the educational reforms in the Philippines. The K-12 program added two
more years to the basic education curriculum. This means that the language instruction including
Tagalog/Filipino are already intensified in the aforementioned program. Thus, there is really no removal
or elimination of Tagalog/Filipino subjects in the education system.

The truth of the matter is that Tagalog/Filipino languages are already embedded in the high school
level of the K-12 program, thus there is no erosion of the national language. If we are scaling back language
instruction in college, it is simply because we are already intensifying language instruction in basic
education. All these actions are part of a greater scheme of educational reform in the Philippines in order
to improve the educational system in the country.