024 Hello, Iloilo (3)
I wasn’t expecting any problems that day. The speech I was to deliver on behalf of the secretary of education was for an audience of school administrators, all of them members of an organization of private schools in the province of Iloilo. My only concern was that then Secretary Jesli Lapus wasn’t able to read the speech I prepared, since he was supposed to see it when we were on the plane to Iloilo, which he did not board. I didn’t see that as a problem though. The guy’s always happy with everything I had written for him. Why would this one be any different?
There were less than 100 people in the room, and by the looks of it, they were either school owners, principals and the most senior teachers of the various private schools in the region. I’m sure they were disappointed that the education secretary wasn’t there even though he was billed to attend. But even though they were stuck with me, I did get a rather friendly reception—at the start.
Things turned sour when I started reading the part of the speech that talked about the need for private schools to level up their game. As much as our underfunded public schools, I said, a lot of these private schools were also not providing quality education.
If you haven’t experienced what it’s like to have a roomful of nuns looking at you like you’re the demon incarnate, I can assure you that it’s not a pretty sight. Some were quite vocal too (Whatever they said, to me it sounded like “Off with his head!”).
Cooler heads in the room prevailed. The pandemonium died, eventually, with the more sensible ones speaking on my behalf, saying that if you feel your school is good, then the assessment didn’t apply to you. Bato-bato sa langit, some were eager to add (with a naughty smile).
I did get to deliver the whole speech (and I did get to leave the room in one piece). So that was the end of that. I just had one more engagement, in the island province of Guimaras, then I could already go back to the peace and quiet of Metro Manila. A few days later, I went to see Lapus at his office and told him, “They got mad at your speech.”
As soon as he asked why, I gave him a printout, which he read while standing by the doorway. All the while, I awaited patiently for his verdict thinking whether or not he was in a good mood that morning.
His response: “Tama naman ‘to, ah.”
I was in the clear. And immediately I went straight to mouthing off the three arguments I raised—in the speech that he just read.
One, private school students performed just as poorly as public school students in standardized tests, with parochial schools performing the worst (Maybe that’s what ticked off the nuns?).
Two, call centers had around 50,000 empty seats then because we couldn’t provide them with enough good English speakers (which was traditionally the strength of Philippine private schools).
And three, private schools had lost their competitive edge, which was supposed to be that they’re better than public schools, since their enrollments were dwindling so much that a lot of them were closing while others were relying on government enrollment subsidies for their survival.
Lapus agreed (Thank God!).
In 2018, I managed to return to Iloilo to attend meetings as a member of the board of directors of Progressive Bank, on a monthly basis, up until the start of the pandemic. Each time I went, I’d be reminded of this rather amusing experience since I always saw Pavia Elementary School—one of the schools I was asked to visit a decade earlier—on my way to the bank.
Each time, I noticed how the school got bigger, with more buildings and more people. Each time, I wondered whether the quality of education offered there was still the same.