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English As Medium Instruction Essay

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http://www.fnf.org.ph/talakayan/liberal_topic.php?id=240 Filipino vs. English as the medium of instruction The English vs. Filipino debate is once again a hot topic. A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court challenging the government?s policy of using English as the medium of instruction in our schools. According to those who filed the petition, the push for the use of English in our classrooms will only lead to further deterioration of what?s already been described as a rather inferior quality of education. Those who support the 2003 Executive Order filed by President Arroyo on the other hand argue that doing away with English as the medium of instruction will inevitably hurt the country and our people more because they …show more content…

Right from the start, when Spain claimed the Philippines as its colony in 1521, it was clear how the Spaniards thought of their mission. They called the natives indios or Indians, and set out to redeem their savage and ignorant souls with religion - Roman Catholicism. More than three centuries and a bloody revolution later, the indios had wholeheartedly embraced Catholicism, but just as wholeheartedly rejected Spanish rule. By this time, only the Filipino rich and educated elite were literate in Spanish. Ironically, from this same exclusive set came the founders of a secret society that pushed for reform and independence. In 1898, after a mock battle at Manila Bay, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. Although there was also a bloody but short-lived Philippine-American Revolution, it took a shorter time for the Americans to pacify and befriend the Filipinos. Unlike Spain's strategy, America's means of attack and assimilation was not religion. It was mass education. Thus, less than half a century later, the Filipinos had

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