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Embrace multilingual background to communicate better: Sen. Pia Cayetano, noting the lack of improvement in the implementation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) under Republic Act No. 10533 or the K to 12 Law, urges Department of Education (DepEd) officials to “embrace the Filipinos’ multilingual background to communicate better.” In the Committee on Basic Education hearing Monday, October 17, 2022, Cayetano noted that of the more than 16,000 schools, only 10 percent were able to comply with the minimum requirement that will set the condition for the effective roll-out of the MTB-MLE program and that the learners being multilingual contributed to the difficulty in implementing the same. “Is it time to rethink how we are doing it? And that’s actually why we are having this hearing, if by now, we don’t have the numbers that show we can’t even ensure that those minimum standards were provided, it must be hard to do... If we can’t roll it out this way, what other ways could we roll out an effective language program?” Cayetano asked. She added that there is nothing in the law that prevents teachers from using English to improve the learners’ proficiency in the language. Education Usec. Epimaco Densing III said while DepEd would continuously use the mother tongue for K to 3, the department is aligning the future curriculum with the pronouncement of President Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos Jr. for a full bilingual program. (Screen grab/ Senate PRIB)