Even Malaysia beat us on English proficiency?

Last Monday, I went to Camp Lapu-Lapu to attend the Change of Command and Retirement Ceremony of Lt. Gen. Isagani C. Cachuela, Commander of the Central Command (Centcom) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) with no less than AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Victor Ibrado as guest of honor and presiding officer.

I have been invited to many such official turnover of commands in the last 20 years that I can’t even remember the number or the names of the officers who came in and out of Camp Lapu Lapu. Last Monday’s ceremonies made me ponder, that 23 years after the People’s Power Revolt removed the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship, the military has truly gone back to normalcy, following the chain of command (except for a few coups here and there) which allows younger officers to assume those vacant posts.

I never got to interview Lt. Gen. Cachuela because of our busy schedule, but from what I gathered, he implemented Phase 3 of Centcom’s campaign plan “Kalinaw” Visayas II which resulted in peace in Central Visayas, especially against the Communist insurgency. Lt. Gen. Cachuela was replaced by Maj. Gen. Ralph A. Villanueva who I’m sure would ensure us Cebuanos that peace and order would be maintained under his watch.

How I wish that our politicians follow the same kind of esprit de corps of the military, where after years of service, they step aside and allow the younger officers to take over their positions. This is why my advocacy is to change the present constitution so that we can really set up a retirement program for politicians who have served their country for a long time.

Today’s kind of politics and politicians has become anathema to many people as they have made politics a family business, keeping out other people who could be our future leaders. We are now 90 million Filipinos but the people running for the highest public office are the same namesakes of politicians going back to the 50s and 60s as if politics was an exclusive club for their family members.

It is time to change all this. Let the others serve their country, just like what I saw last Monday, when Lt. Gen. Cachuela signed his relief and retirement order without a whimper. It was a real transfer of power to another general. I can only salute the officers and men of the AFP for keeping this tradition alive, despite our political turmoil.

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I read an article on page 5 of The Philippine Star yesterday entitled, “RP Just Second to Malaysia in English Proficiency” which was kind of a shocker to me because the Philippines has always been dubbed as one of the nations whose people spoke English very well. As it turned out, the average score of Filipinos who took the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) last year was down to 6.69 in a passing grade of 7.0. This proves that many Filipinos no longer speak English, unlike in our generation.

IELTS is taken by Filipinos who seek work abroad, like in the UK or Australia. My daughter Katrina took this three years ago and passed it without a hitch. In my house, I often speak English to my children so they would not only get used to speaking it, but also it prepares them to communicate in the outside world, where English has become a world language.

But it’s a downright shame that Malaysia has beaten us in English proficiency when Filipinos were once the only English speakers in Asean. This piece of news should be a “wake up call” for the Department of Education (DepEd) to do something to arrest this downslide. As we wrote yesterday, the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry is the only bright light that brings Direct Foreign Investors (FDI) in our country, which means jobs for our people, especially students who will be graduating next March. Let the Academe also be warned, that they should fix whatever is wrong with the way we teach English in our schools!

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A week ago, I was listening on a late night radio talkshow when the news broke out that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) was supposed to be in a “hot pursuit” on the suspected robbery gang that allegedly pulled the heist in a Rolex store in Greenbelt 5 at the Ayala Center in Makati. What I found strange was that, the NBI agents were all wearing hoods over their faces and did now allow the Cebu media inside the house where a shootout occurred.

Perhaps NBI Regional Director Medardo de Lemos ought to clarify many issues that the media have been asking, like the lack of bullet holes in the apartment where the shootout happened. We’d really want to know whether the Rolex robbers were killed in a shootout or a rubout?

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