STRUGGLING readers are often teased, labeled “lazy” or “slow,” and slowly shrink into silence or act out just to cope. Anxiety festers. Mental wellness suffers. Some drop out not because they lack potential, but because school becomes a place of shame instead of growth. Literacy struggles, when left unaddressed, do not just hurt report cards—they break spirits.
Add to that the cruel irony of updated curricula without updated materials. Modules arrive late, if at all. Teachers are assigned subjects far from their expertise—music majors teaching calculus, PE instructors handling physics. EDCOM 2 found that 62 percent of high school teachers are misassigned. No amount of passion can make up for such mismatches.
And then there’s the infrastructure gap: schools without power, connectivity, utilities, books, modules, labs, boards, or even chairs. These are not distant upland tales—they are happening in the heart of Western Visayas. While condominiums rise in a year, some classrooms take a decade to fix. Teachers use umbrellas to shield books from leaks; students sit on cardboard on flooded floors. How do we expect minds to grow in places the system forgets?
Ladrido stresses that functional literacy goes beyond test scores—it is about practical skills that impact safety, livelihood, and human dignity. When people cannot read a contract, interpret a medicine label, or fill out a job application, the consequences are immediate and deeply personal.
These are not abstract gaps; they are lived consequences.
Even gendered patterns in literacy raise flags. PSA data shows that 74.8 percent of women in Western Visayas are functionally literate, compared to just 66.6 percent of men. This begs deeper inquiry: Are boys leaving school earlier? Are interventions less engaging for them? Are cultural expectations skewing priorities? Without clear diagnosis, we risk applying the wrong cure.
Still, there are glimmers of hope. Bulig Eskwela sang Probinsya shows that targeted reading workbooks, guided interventions, and community-based tutorials can move the needle. But reaching only ten towns out of 42 is hardly enough. These programs must evolve from pilot projects into institutional norms—barangay reading maps, regular remediation classes, reading benchmarks integrated into school systems.
To be fair, the Department of Education is not asleep at the wheel. It has quietly rolled out efforts like the Comprehensive Rapid Literacy Assessment (CRLA), an enhanced Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI), and revitalized Brigada Pagbasa partnerships. These aim to sharpen diagnostic tools and reboot reading support. And despite the challenge of scale, many Iloilo schools are now tapping LGU support more actively, signaling a shift from rhetoric to results.
But let us be clear: no slogan or tarpaulin campaign will fix this. As Ladrido emphasized, functional illiteracy is not just a school issue—it is a governance issue. If Iloilo wants to stay competitive, it must treat reading not as a side project but as a front-line investment. That means books before bunting, training over tokenism, and outcomes over checklists.
This moment is not a death sentence—it is a crossroad. Iloilo can accept its ranking and retreat, or it can use it as a wake-up call. To realign education goals with community needs. To unlearn harmful habits. To be allergic to mediocrity. To relearn how literacy builds not just brighter learners, but better futures.
For teachers and school heads, this is not about compliance. It is a quiet crusade. Every day, in crowded classrooms and underfunded faculty rooms, many continue to fight for each child’s right to understand the world through words. That grit deserves more than applause—it demands action. Because a province that reads is not just informed. It is empowered. And when a province reads together, it rises together.
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Doc H fondly describes himself as a ”student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with./PN
