EDITORIAL — No RIP for Rizal

It’s regrettable that the nation is commemorating the 128th anniversary of the execution of Jose Rizal amid protests over the insufficiency of funding for the education sector.

Rizal was fortunate to have obtained formal education in top universities abroad. He understood how education can empower people and lead to emancipation from poverty. He wanted the Filipino masses – not just the wealthy elite and the small middle class – to be educated first before the country would become independent from Spain.

Today, there is universal free education from kindergarten to college. It is, however, free education on a shoestring budget compared to the resources poured into the sector by other Asian countries. There is a continuing backlog in classrooms. Teachers, who have to beg for every meaningful increase in their pay, continue to seek greener pastures overseas. The consequences include large, unwieldy class sizes and shorter hours in school, which further hinder proper education.

The declining quality of education is evident in the country’s progressive fall in international surveys on national competitiveness. The deterioration was validated in the results of the two times that the country participated in the Program for International Student Assessment, in 2018 and 2022. Education officials said they wanted the Philippines to participate in the PISA to determine how much work needed to be done in the sector.

While the nation knew that the quality of education had been going downhill, the PISA results were still dismaying: Filipino 15-year-old students ranked at the bottom in mathematics, science and reading literacy. Between 2018 and 2022, there was little improvement in the results.

Other countries would consider such findings a national crisis and respond accordingly. Not in the Philippines. The year is ending with Filipinos outraged over the funding priorities of Congress, with the budget for the Department of Education slashed by P12 billion. Meanwhile, the appropriation for the Department of Public Works and Highways was increased by a hefty P289 billion during the bicameral conference, bringing its total to P1.1 trillion – higher than the appropriation for the entire education sector.

The bicam also cut funding for the Department of Social Welfare and Development by P96 billion and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. by P74.4 billion, while increasing allocations for members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The realignments are not only shameless but also unconstitutional on at least two counts: Congress may cut but not increase funding proposed under the National Expenditure Program, and education must get the largest slice of the annual budget pie.

Today on his death anniversary, Jose Rizal must be turning over in his grave.