SPONSORSHIP SPEECH
SB 1365: Alternative Learning System
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto
26 February 2020

The sheer number of people—nearly 7 million—who stands to benefit from this bill makes it a policy necessity.

And the massive good it will bring to individuals and to the nation as a whole makes its passage a moral imperative.

Seven million of our countrymen aged between 15 and 30 did not finish basic education. Seven million is four times the population of the Cordilleras, and almost thrice the number of people in CARAGA.

They are those who, not by choice but by circumstance, have fallen off the school ladder.

To them, this bill makes this solemn vow: You will not be left behind.

Because in plain language, the preamble of this bill promises those who have dropped out of school that they are not forgotten.

If education is a war against illiteracy, then the ALS or Alternative Learning System is its search-and-rescue arm. It finds those who have left school, and shepherds them into a program that will allow them to finish their studies.

And the latter is a game-changer for anyone who has achieved it.

It means, based on a World Bank study, earning P2,400 more per month.

But it yields benefits greater than a 30,000-peso bump in annual income.

It allows a young man, whose pocket may be empty but whose head is not, a pathway to college, and, in fact, 6 in 10 of ALS students proceeded to enroll in one.

In a nation a where a diploma is equated with intelligence, the ALS’s accreditation and equivalency system pierces the “diploma curtain” blocking the career advancement of people who are bright but sadly without credentials.

It allows a father who did not know how to read to finally reply to the text messages of his son.

It allows a mother who barely knew how to count to go to the market without fear that she will literally be shortchanged.

It erases the social stigma of being “no read, no write,” and the intellectual handicap of being able to read but not understand.

When numbers and words cease to be undecipherable doodles to the unlettered, and when the latter begins to know their meaning, it is as if they have stepped into the sunlight from a world of darkness.

This is the bill, Mr. President, that could bring seven million of our countrymen to the light at end of the tunnel.

How?

By principally bringing education to where they are. If they can’t go to school, then school will come to them.

And why not? If this is a nation where pizza can be home-delivered, and if appliances can be couriered to one’s doorstep, then why not the most important commodity of them all—knowledge?

If we can shop online, then why can’t we study online, too?

Under this bill, alternative learning can be done the following ways:
Modular instruction.
Online, digital or mobile learning.
Face-to-face learning sessions and tutorials.

Kasama din sa menu ang workshops, simulations, internship, training, and mentorship.

And of course, radio or television-based instruction. Pwedeng tele-skwela. In fact, kung may subject about financial literacy, ang title ng programa ay pwedeng “Cash Lending On You.”

Or it can be a blend of the above, a hybrid system that is customized for the needs of the learner and the community he lives in.

While learners will not be boxed in by the four walls of a classroom, it does not mean that there will be no need for a physical space ALS enrollees can go to.

On the contrary, this bill calls for the establishment of a national network of stand-alone ALS-Community Learning Centers or CLCs.

These will be complemented by rooms and facilities in public schools designated for ALS use.

The CLCs will be open seven days a week, isang karinderya ng karunungang bukas buong linggo.

And rooms in schools designated for ALS use shall be made available to learners and mentors during no-class days, and after-school hours.

Let me cite some of the important items in the raft of provisions needed to keep this program afloat.

For ALS students to learn, they need to have good teachers, and this bill seeks to create a corps of ALS teachers properly trained and compensated.

Overseeing the program is a dedicated unit in DepEd, the Bureau of Alternative Education.

ALS will not only have a seat in the table, but a space in the budget as well.

Last year, ALS funding was tucked in an item that was 1/5th of 1 percent of DepEd’s P501 billion appropriations. It shares one trait with the coronavirus: It is so small that it can only be seen through a microscope.

Hopefully, this bill creates a must-fund mandate. And Senator Win is right: It must not solely rely on the grace of government, but also on the generosity of citizens, so there is a provision there which makes contribution to ALS programs a tax-deductible expense.

Mr. President, my dear colleagues:

As it is true in life, in love and in legislation, what is essential is invisible to eyes—and to the trolls.

In the scheme of things, this ALS charter is as important as the ABS franchise.

At a time when public attention is often riveted to the shallow and the salacious, this is the serious and substantive stuff the nation needs.

It may register low in the political sexiness index, neither attracting headlines nor the anger of the trolls, but it is the boring pieces of legislation like this that bring lasting benefits.