For the love of learning and serving

Our children will once again fill the classrooms of about 60,000 schools all over the country to mark the beginning of school year 2024-2025. Coinciding with the start of the new school year, we also welcome the new Department of Education (DepEd) secretary, Sen. Sonny Angara, who has just assumed the position in July.

As a friend to Secretary Sonny and his wife Tootsy, I extend my warm congratulations on his appointment. As an advocate for children and education, I sincerely wish him good luck and success, as he takes on the gargantuan task of managing the country’s embattled education sector. 

It is sad to admit, but the facts about basic education in the Philippines paint a picture of a system that is struggling to provide Filipino learners the opportunity to be prepared for their future. Secretary Sonny is inheriting a challenging post marked by glaring problems across the sector’s stakeholders.

Primarily, there is a shortage of classrooms and teachers. EDCOM II last year flagged tens of thousands in vacancies and an alarmingly disproportionate teacher-to-student ratio in public schools, while a lack of classrooms means classes in two shifts have become the norm. 

These and other factors, such as our basic education curriculum, inevitably led to our poor performance against global academic standards, like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

But despite the challenges ahead, I’ve known Secretary Sonny long enough to know that he’s up to it. 

In 2007, I covered the Batasang Pambansa bombing incident for ABS-CBN News, where the assassination of a lawmaker led to six fatalities and 12 injured. Among what was unforgettable to me during that coverage was the image of then-representative Sonny tending to the wounded and helping colleagues amid the terror and confusion.

It was not my first encounter with the senator, but it would be one of my most memorable. Without fanfare and with no cameras rolling, he was busy offering assistance as much as he could.

It was also in 2007 when I trailed the Arroyo administration’s Team Unity senatorial slate, and I got the chance to know the late legendary Senator Ed Angara – or SEJA as he was fondly called.