| via Derick Sistoso, Pressroom PH
Schools bustling in yellow and green hues; others are bricked with technology, and the one to call this out is the same person who made the situation worse.
Reigning terror in the Philippines while residing elsewhere is a whole new level of pettiness and skill. From gracing billboards during the 2022 elections to being plastered on news covers as a terrible role model for political nepo-babies, this is quite the descent. It’s amusing that she now acknowledges the brutality of our education system, yet infuriating that she hasn’t lifted a finger to improve it during her tenure as Secretary of the Department of Education.
Vice President Sara Duterte warned that Filipino students are now lagging in “pen and paper” skills, while other countries are teaching children how to build robots and code. While she was in Kuwait, attending the “Hakbang ng Maisug” event, she emphasized how sluggish our modernization is compared to neighboring countries that are rapidly speeding up. She even said, point-blank:“In other countries, their children are already learning about robotics and coding. At age three and four, they already know how to read. While in our country, there are high school students who still do not know how to read.”
The Palace calling her a failure was my personal +5 to my report card, because it’s true that she was a disappointment when leading. First and foremost, Rappler reported that Duterte was personally asking for ₱150 million in confidential funds for the Department of Education. What’s more is that when she spent them, there was no visible change or what felt within the system that we’re actively rotting in. Instead of flies being attracted to the scent of rotting flesh, we’re roaches scattering away from the spray that aims to poison our circulatory system.
And when she created the “MATATAG Curriculum,” which doesn’t live up to its name— according to Inquirer, she left the project for dead as it was already widespread and used throughout the entire Philippines. Some teachers even noticed textbook historical revisionism, where parts of the martial law were doctored. Additionally, I felt the project was rushed and unstable,with subject goals poorly balanced and even subjects renamed.
Another factor of her being the problem of our urine-filled swimming pool— that is, our education system, is her chaperoning programs such as the Digital Education Learning Carts, which aimed to serve the masses with devices for educational use. However, in contrast with her incompetence, the Commission on Audit reported a 0% accomplishment rate in 2023, highlighting her administration's having to fail at delivering thousands of laptops, smart TVs, and ICT tools.
Her strong aura and rhetoric may seem overwhelmingly presidential, but her results always show no letdown when it comes to putting basic education at risk. In early 2023, Duterte delivered the Basic Education Report 2023, a high-profile event, where she emphasized and criticized the disintegrating state of our school system, promising reforms. And what showed up at our doorstep? The majority of her promises and reforms remained discontinued and incomplete, clearing the fog and revealing an existential gap that could cause a 40-year-old man to suffer from tachycardia.
And yesterday, she said that she is not a failure of the system. Was it weird to me? Unprecedentedly so, because all those times where I had to form my spine while growing 2 more heads to review for multiple subjects all at once, the result of her reckless and rushed projects was way too foul to be true. She can look at the bleeding and fractured bones of the crying victim, but not do anything that brings satisfaction towards their agonizing injuries. In the felt clutch of circumstance itself, I felt strangled, more so deprived of oxygen during her term.
Our schools may glimmer with color, but they rot with the fingerprints she left on them. Gee, I wonder why no one believes her when she says she isn’t a failure.
