Who blinked?

The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) has blinked in its confrontation with the Cebu provincial government over the issue of mandatory wearing of face masks in public.

To save face, the DILG said that it has reached a compromise with the Cebu local government unit (LGU) over Gov. Gwen Garcia’s order making the wearing of face masks optional.

“It turned out good because we sought a compromise or common solution for this issue. It was good, because the parties were very much cooperative, so we are also thanking the provincial government and Gov. Gwen and we took note of the ordinance by the provincial council,” said DILG Secretary Eduardo Año.

The Cebu Provincial Board, through an ordinance, backed the governor’s order making it optional, and not mandatory, the wearing of face masks in open spaces.

Año threatened to file graft and corruption charges against the governor for violating a national policy of the mandatory wearing of face masks in public and enclosed places.

Garcia stood up to Año’s threat, apparently aware that the current administration is on its way out.

Moral of the story: Don’t make a threat if you can’t carry it out.

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President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos’ marching orders to vice president-elect and education secretary-designate Sara Duterte is to study the K-12 system, which has added two years of a student’s life in school.

K-12’s aim is to improve the learning curve of Filipino students competitive with those of other countries.

But alas, despite K-12, Filipino students are still lagging behind their counterparts in Asia in science and language!

In short, K-12 hasn’t improved the classroom standing of Pinoy students vis-à-vis, say, students in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) places Filipino students at the lowest ranking among 79 countries for mathematics, science and reading comprehension in 2018.

The low rating of our students in the 3R’s (reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic) reflects on the country’s standard of education.

Our present crop of teachers is mediocre and doesn’t strive for excellence. “OK na yan (That will pass),” is a favorite phrase of the Filipino’s mediocrity.

Some female public school teachers, instead of preparing their lesson plan, gyrate and do thrusting motions on Tiktok. They’re not setting a good example for their students.

Have you read how the current crop of Filipino college graduates write or talk in English? Their grammar is atrocious. Their mangling of English probably makes them the butt of jokes by their Asian counterparts.

There was a time when the country’s educational system was at par with the United States and other countries in Europe.

During the American occupation in the 1920s and ‘30s, students here who finished Grade 7 could already teach students in the lower grades. They were not only fluent in English, but they also excelled in Science and Mathematics.

The Philippines then was considered the second largest English-speaking country next to the US.

You will ask, “But why should we expect our students to be fluent in English when we’re Filipinos?”

Senators Bong Go, Lito Lapid, Robin Padilla and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa would want Filipino as the medium of communication in the august body instead of English, if they were to have their way.

“Mga Pilipino naman tayo, bakit tayo magsasalita ng Ingles (We’re Filipinos, why should we talk in English),” asked senator-elect Padilla.

English is the lingua franca of world commerce. Science subjects are mostly written in English. Airline pilots all over the world communicate with people at the air traffic control tower in English. To speak and write English – correctly, that is – means to excel in one’s workplace, whether here or abroad.

Filipinos need to be proficient in English because the country is one of the largest exporters of manpower. Millions of our countrymen work abroad.

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Joke! Joke! Joke!

Man to shopkeeper in a US city: Give me 10 guns, 100 rounds of ammo for each caliber and l aspirin.

Shopkeeper: Sorry, sir, we can’t give you aspirin without a prescription.