State of textbooks: Still faulty, says Go

The business community hailed this week Metro Pacific’s entry in port operation. But an unseen hand is trying to sabotage the conglomerate’s upgrade of Manila North Harbor. Lies are being spread that Metro Pacific, upon taking over the derelict pre-War wharf, will layoff workers and raise port fees. This, as the Philippine Ports Authority prepares to grant the North Harbor modernization contract after two long years of delay. Metro Pacific and Harbour Centre had won with a P14.5-billion investment bid. Eight old piers will be torn down and modern ones will rise to match the setups in Rotterdam and Singapore. North Harbor is expected to become the country’s most competitive.

Port entrepreneurs no less told Metro Pacific of foul rumors being bandied about it. But the firm assured that it would in fact hire more skilled workers for construction works. Too, free competition would drive port fees down while improving services and facilities.

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It would be interesting to see how the Senate will make presidential crony Ricky Razon appear in an environment inquiry. The last time Razon’s name came up in a Senate probe — on the ZTE scam — he simply ignored invitations of the Blue-Ribbon committee. Members soon “forgot” about a $70-million reimbursement of advances to the admin’s 2007 poll campaign.

This time senators will investigate Razon’s disputed coal explorations in Bicol. Or won’t it?

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Anti-“sick books” crusader Antonio Calipjo Go is back with a vengeance. After nearly giving in to ailments, lawsuits and bad press, he testified at the Senate Monday about the state of school textbooks. Go’s assessment:

After 13 years of denouncing shoddy textbooks, 13 congressional bills and resolutions, ten Secretaries of Education, ten newspaper ads paid from his own pocket, and four libel suits . . . not one error-riddled book had been corrected . . . only one minor case had been filed in court against a person linked to a textbook scam . . . and the latest publications are faultier than ever.

The Department of Education’s attitude is best summed up by Go’s recitation of its own press pronouncements:

• On 24 Aug. 2007 it announced “a new head of the textbook body”;

• On 14 Sept. 2007 it “formed a nine-man panel to study the errors”;

• On 2 Apr. 2008 it was “soon to set up a new book review body”;

• On 30 June 2008 it came out with “a 21-page Errata Guide to correct errors in seven elementary Social Studies textbooks”;

• On 5 June 2009 it vowed “to issue a Teacher’s Guide to correct the errors in six newly-purchased public school textbooks in English.”

And yet, Go sighed, not one book review body had been constituted.

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Culprit DepEd even violates or muddles its own policies, Go said:

• On “one textbook per pupil” in public schools, with “the same title per class per subject,” it approved two Social Studies titles for Grade 3. Determining is hazy on which school gets Masipag na Pilipino (P42.18@) or Ang Bagong Pilipino (P56.30@). There are also two titles for Grade 5 Social Studies, Marangal na Pilipino and Kasaysayang Pilipino, by sister firms Vibal Publishing and LG&M.

• On “using only textbooks that pass evaluation and quality production standards,” Book Wise Publishing’s English for You and Me, Reading Textbook for Grade 6 has at least 500 errors.

• On “purchasing textbooks by subject for entire student population every five years,” the call for textbooks in Apr. 2006 and Dec. 2007 yielded no new titles to replace 1999 editions, like Dane Publishing’s Landas sa Pagbasa and Landas sa Wika. In another case, a newly-approved textbook for English is a recycle of the old edition; only five of its 20 selections are new.

• On “purchasing by entire subject series to have a logic of curricular progression,” say, elementary Grades 1-6 or high school 1st-4th Years, different publishers supplied English textbooks to different grades. SD Publications got Grades 1 and 5 (three titles); Book Wise Grades 2, 3, 4 and 6 (seven titles). In Social Studies, Mary Jo Publishing got Grade 3; LG&M got Grades 2, 4 and 5; Vibal got Grades 1, 3 and 5. Two books in the subject Filipino used in 3rd Year are exactly the same, except in titles Gintong Pamana III and Wika at Panitikan III, and publishers SD Publications and JGM&S Corp.

• On “testing textbooks in schools” before mass distribution, English for You and Me series was approved for nationwide distribution raw and untested.

• On the “ban from the evaluation process of any DepEd personnel with ties to the bidding publisher whether as editor or author,” a number of them moonlight just the same. The pretext is that they’re doing it for publishers of private school textbooks, although the same firms publish public school books.

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So why are textbooks sloppy? Congress will find solutions in Go’s answers:

• There is no law to penalize sloppy authors, editors and publishers.

• There is no credible agency to review and screen private and public school textbooks for errors.

• For public schools, it should be the Instructional Materials Council Secretariat. But it is sleeping on the job. In 2007 is spent P1.15 billion, and in 2008 P1.77 billion on textbooks — mostly full of errors.

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“If you want your fame to outlive you, anchor it on humility. Saints outlived the good they did because for God and others they lived.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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