GLOBAL

IMPACT

READING IN THE
PHILIPPINES
Gabriela Lee
With one of the highest literacy rates in Southeast Asia,
(gabriela.dans.lee@gmail.
com) is an assistant professor
how did the Philippines manage to foster such a rise, and
in the Department of English
what else needs to be done?
and Comparative Literature
By Gabriela Lee
at the University of the

a
Philippines. Her fiction and
poetry have been published in
the Philippines, Singapore, the
United States, and Australia.
s an enthusiastic reader and a writing teacher at the University of the Philippines,
it always surprises me whenever I have a student who tells me, “I don’t like
reading.”
When asked why, the usual answer ranges from “It’s boring” to “I’m too
lazy to read.” And yet, my students right now are the products of a confluence of
elements that created a successful national literacy program. As Frederick Perez,
the current secretary of the Reading Association of the Philippines, says, “Literacy
education is the primary factor that caused this development in our country.
More educators have become more convinced that reading is the baseline in the
education of the youth.”

32 July/August 2015 | LITERACY TODAY

 The Philippines boasts a consistent
functional literacy rate of 95.6% as
of 2008, according to the National
Statistics Office’s Functional Literacy,
Education and Mass Media Survey
(FLEMMS), which collects data every
five years. While the 2013 data is still
being processed, according to the 2008
results, almost 9 out of 10 Filipinos are
functionally literate.
Furthermore, according to the
2010 National Census, 97.5% of the
entire population of 68 million Filipinos
holds a basic literacy level—this in a
country with English and Filipino as
official joint languages, along with
13 indigenous languages and more
than 180 distinct languages spoken
across the regions, and their derivative
dialects.
Recovery and rebuilding
In 1989, the Census recorded functional
literacy in the Philippines at 75.4%.
The country was recovering from
Martial Law, and the lack of freedom
of information and education was a
continuing struggle for the average
Filipino.
According to a 2012 article entitled
“Martial law and the miseducation
of our youth,” written by Dr. Ricardo
Ma. Duran Nolasco, a professor in
the Department of Linguistics at
the University of the Philippines,
“[Ferdinand] Marcos saw the education
system as his primary vehicle to
perpetuate the warped values of his
so-called New Society, with disastrous
historical consequences. Rather
than promote genuine literacy, the
bilingual policy only contributed to
the miseducation of generations of
Filipinos.”
The concept of “Bagong Lipunan,”
or New Society, was former Philippine
President Marcos’ vision of liberating
the nation from poverty and turmoil.
Martial Law was used as an excuse
Literacy skills were not just a matter of
personal growth and learning, but a matter
of economics.
LITERACY TODAY | July/August 2015
to bring all the powers of the state
under one man’s control. He also
assumed control of many mass media
organizations and other commercial
establishments and redistributed the
wealth to his friends and supporters.
From 1972 until 1986, Marcos used
the education system, along with state-
controlled media, as a propaganda tool
for his New Society ideology.
However, when democracy was re-
established in 1986, the Department of
Education, Culture, and Sports (now the
Department of Education) streamlined
the education system, while still using
a bilingual model of teaching. In 1994,
functional literacy jumped to 83.8%.
The trend continued in 2003, when
84% of the population was considered
literate. In 2012, a new language model
was introduced: the mother tongue-
based multilingual education, or
MTBMLE.
This massive jump in literacy
levels—now at just over 95%—can
be attributed to a number of things,
including the growing Filipino
diaspora, improvements in teacher
training and teaching materials, and a
burgeoning reading culture.
Economics and education
According to Victor Villanueva,
founder of the Readability Literacy
Improvement Center in Quezon City,
there was an “exponential increase
in the need for communicating using
reading and writing. As more and
more Filipinos traveled around the
world mainly for employment, Filipinos
needed to maximize many avenues to
communicate with loved ones [and]
manage how money was sent through
digital transactions.
“These and many activities of the
low-income earners pushed people
to learn literacy skills because their
economic needs depended on such
skills,” he says.
With more than 14 million Filipinos
living abroad—the Overseas Workers
Welfare Association (OWWA) says at
least 2.3 million left the country in 2014
alone—literacy skills were not just a
matter of personal growth and learning,
but a matter of economics.
Overall improvement in teacher
training, teaching materials, and
reading programs have also contributed
to the rising numbers in functional
literacy. With the implementation of
the K–12 program on a nationwide scale,
which began during the 2012–2013
school year, there is now an emphasis in
mother tongue literacy, which is being
piloted using 12 Philippine languages,
alongside English and Filipino. There
is also an emphasis on language and
literature subjects in the core curricula,
with effective communication skills
being a large focus.
Perez also cites the effectivity of
reading programs, saying, “Different
groups have also supported literacy
in our country like the Reading
Association of the Philippines,
[Philippine] Board on Books for Young
People, BASA Pilipinas, Sa Aklat Sisikat,
and others.”
In particular, Sa Aklat Sisikat
(SAS) Foundation promotes literacy
and reading comprehension skills
by running reading marathons for
elementary school students, starting in
fourth grade. The program donates 60
age-appropriate books for the schools,
conducts teacher training programs
in running reading comprehension
exercises based on the books, and
monitors a month-long reading
marathon for the students.
In a 2014 evaluation published
by Journal of Human Resources, it
was discovered that students who
participated in the SAS reading
marathons read at least seven more
books than other students during the
SAS-conducted program, and continued
reading at least 1.24 more books the
month after the program ended.
A supportive reading culture is also
important in fostering literacy.
As the 2012 National Book
Development Board (NBDB) Readership
Survey shows, 88% of Filipinos still
consider reading to be an important
activity in their lives. While 18–24-year-
olds still dominate the top readership
33
 positions, 25–34-year-olds come in a
close second.
There also exists a correlation
between education and a robust reading
culture: 98% of those surveyed received
a college education.
Accessibility and
enjoyment
There is still a lot to be done. Honey
de Peralta, cofounder of Filipino
ReaderCon and learning systems
manager of Rex Digital—one of the
largest textbook providers in the
Philippines—says there is still a “lack of
good reading programs that go beyond
teaching literacy, but an actual love for
reading.”
Villanueva echoes this call,
saying the “fundamental challenge
Celebrate International Literacy Day
On Sept. 8, people throughout the
world will celebrate International
Literacy Day (ILD)—and we are
providing educators with a unique,
comprehensive toolkit to kick off
the celebration.
Our theme, “The Power
of People: Start a Literacy
Movement,” emphasizes the
ability of individuals to serve as
catalysts for change. And, over
the last 35 years, the people of the
Philippines have done just that.
That’s why, this year, we’ve
made the country the focus of all
of the activities in our kit.
From church communities
and universities to
nongovernmental organizations
and more, the rising literacy rates
in the Philippines have thrived on
collective action.
Literature, games, food, the
environment, and more—the
activity kit covers a wide range of
34
of educators is their own lack of
knowledge and skills in teaching
literacy effectively.”
In fact, Villanueva points out that
“this problem is worsened by school
owners’ and administrators’ failure
to provide sustained professional
development to teach teachers how to
teach reading and writing.”
A stronger push toward
accessibility and updating of the
Philippine library system is also needed
in order to improve access to books for
the next generation of readers.
“There is a law stipulating that
every city should have a public library,”
says de Peralta. “Unfortunately, it’s not
implemented by all, [but] if we provide
libraries and qualified people who can
manage them, we can significantly
improve literacy in the country….
topics rooted in Filipino culture.
The activities are accompanied by
a Filipino book list, statistics about
the country, and a poster (pictured
here) created by Filipino illustrator
Liza Flores.
In ILD fashion, we embraced
the power of people in producing
The fact that there is a library there—a
place where they can go to seek refuge
from whatever it is that bothers them
or borrow things that are usually only
available to the middle class and above—
could mean that they begin to value
reading more.”
This is echoed by the 2012 NBDB
survey, which reports that only 25% of
readers polled accessed books through
the library, compared to 47% who
accessed books by borrowing from other
people.
Aside from better reading programs
and teacher training, there are problems
of costs and distribution of books still
encountered by teachers in both urban
and rural areas. De Peralta sums it up
succinctly: “Teachers—and students—
just really need books.”
this year’s kit, working in close
partnership with the Reading
Association of the Philippines to
develop all of the activities
you’ll find.
To further enhance the
experience, teachers and students
throughout the world can connect
with Filipino classrooms through
ePals, a site that facilitates global
classroom connections.
We also worked with the
folks at Little Free Library®
to add a service component.
We’re encouraging participants
to build a Little Free Library in
their community. Our service
kit provides tips for classroom
integration, from the planning to
the installation. Starting in 2009
with a single library in Hudson,
WI, Little Free Library has since
evolved into a global movement.
Visit literacyworldwide.org/ild.
—Olivia Duke
July/August 2015 | LITERACY TODAY
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