Panpacific University, through its Panpacific Language Center PCL), is among the few Philippine Higher Education Institutions (HEI) that celebrated the International Mother Language Day. The celebration was done through a free webinar themed Multilingual Education - A Necessity to Transform Education on February 29, 2024. 

Dr. Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, founder of 170+ Talaytayan MLE Inc. and Atty. Magtanggol Gunigundo, principal author of RA 10533  shared relevant studies that showcase the numerous advantages of using students’ first language (L1) in teaching and learning. 

Dr. Nolasco’s presentation focused on the illusion of using English as the only medium of instruction. He emphasized that this practice is not at all effective as evidenced by the recent studies. He further mentioned that the English Only Policy is actually the culprit as to why the literacy level of students is still low. 

Dr. Nolasco also presented the 2022 PISA result which shows that the Philippines placed 6th to the last in reading, 6th to the last in Mathematics, and 3rd to the last in Science.

This kind of problem had been around almost a century ago. Atty. Magtanggol accentuated the Monroe report in 1925 which showed that Filipino scores on tests were lower because these were administered in a foreign language (English) and that the scores would be higher if the instruction had been given in the native language. This, together with the studies showing the detrimental effects of using English only in teaching and learning and severfal test results, urged the need for multilingual education. With this, Atty. Magtanggol said that the 21st century education should not be a melting pot of different languages; instead, it should be a salad bowl where all languages co-exist. 

‘This celebration of IMLG opened the minds of the pre-service and in-service teachers on the relevance of multilingual education in the Philippines. We should divert our mindset that English is not a measurement of intelligence. Yes, we need English for international communication, but we need our mother tongue for us to survive, move forward, and progress together, Mr. Sermonia, the lead for PCL mentioned. 

Through this initiative, Panpacific University has once again proven its commitment to advocating local languages.