Battle of Pulang Lupa now used as metaphor in continued effort to keep us dumb?

A losing battle to improve textbooks (excerpts)
By: Fernando del Mundo, Inquirer

Antonio Calipjo Go’s lament about “sick books” has been instructive for teachers on the frontline of a struggle to improve basic education in public schools—an effort not unlike the Battle of Pulang Lupa during the Philippine-American war.

On a mountain slope in this coastal town overlooking the spectacular Sibuyan Bay on Sept. 13, 1900, Col. Maximo Abad and his ragtag band of Filipinos, armed mainly with bolos and machetes, routed a US force led by Capt. Devereaux Shields.

Concrete mural depicting one of the worst defeats the Americans
had suffered in that war stands at the memorial site. Photo: Marinduque Rising

The little-known battle on Pulang Lupa came at a critical time for US President William McKinley, who was facing the anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan in an upcoming election. McKinley responded with ferocity that quickly ended the Philippine war for independence and cemented the path of America’s manifest destiny, for better or worse.

Eleven months later, the transport vessel USAT Thomas disgorged 530 Americans—later known as the Thomasites—in Manila to train 25,000 English-speaking schoolteachers and establish the Philippine public education system that produced exemplary leaders and captains of industry...

'Nation of fifth graders'

In a sense, the Battle of Pulang Lupa may well serve as a metaphor in the Sisyphean effort to revitalize a system that, according to the late education dean Josefina Cortes, has produced a “nation of fifth graders.”

Like Abad’s troops on Pulang Lupa, the teachers soldiering on in Torrijos, as in other parts of the country, have little of the wherewithal to raise the quality of education and make their pupils competitive in the global village...

Battle of Pulang Lupa re-enactment at the shrine. Photo: Marinduque Rising

Because of the failure of the Department of Education (DepEd) to deliver essential needs on time, teachers and pupils xerox learning materials at their own expense. They download subject content from the Internet and have them copied and distributed to their pupils.

They also have to grapple with textbooks that are riddled with errors—a problem that has persisted through the past two decades as student proficiency in English, math and science deteriorated. Public outcries over teaching materials lost in translation sparked public indignation and well-publicized congressional investigations in the past and were soon forgotten after the TV camera lights went out.

On a recent visit to several schools in Torrijos, teachers showed English books for children. Texts in many pages were shadowed with yellow markers on supposed typographical, grammatical, factual and conceptual errors.

One high school teacher was still using the Grade 10 English Learner’s Material, pathetically titled, “Diversity: Celebrating Multiculturism (sic) Through World Literature,” that was critiqued in a June 8 article by the eagle-eyed Go, a self-styled “sick books” crusader, who said he had found 1,300 errors in the material...

'Conspiracy of silence'

Benjie Valbuena, national chair of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), blames a conspiracy of silence in the screening and publishing process for the problem of textbooks through the years.

“There is no consultation. Decisions come from the high DepEd officials—the supervisors and regional directors. There is no transparency in their meetings. That is why you have that quality and the errors go on and on. The teachers are pointing out the errors in these textbooks, criticizing them, but these are not being rectified,” he said....

According to a 2003 National Statistics Office survey, out of an estimated 58 million Filipinos aged 10 to 64 years old, around 9 million are functionally illiterate or unable to compute and lacked certain numeracy skills.

Results of the National Career Assessment Examination in 2014 showed that the general scholastic ability of Filipino high school students was a sorry 44.48 percent.

The Philippines ranked near the bottom in the 1999 and 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) tests. The Philippines did not participate in the 2007 and 2011 TIMSS...

White Beach in Torrijos. Photo: Angelique de Leon

The problem is what’s going on inside the classrooms. Teachers in Torrijos expressed reluctance in talking about their dire situation. Several of them who did later telephoned and backtracked or played down criticism about their situation.

They may not have the courage of their forebears at Pulang Lupa, but they plod on relentlessly with the little of what they have and talk proudly of their accomplishments—the graduates who have gone on to vocational schools and have become skilled workers overseas...