ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro and nominee Antonio Tinio raised grave concern over a recent Philippine Statistics Authority study showing that 18.9 million senior high school graduates between 2019 and 2024 are functionally illiterate.

“This is not just a crisis—it’s a national emergency,” Castro warned. “When one in five graduates cannot comprehend a simple story, it shows a systemic failure in our education system. Ito ay patunay na bumabagsak ang ating sistema ng edukasyon at hindi ito nabibigyan ng sapat na atensyon ng kasalukuyang administrasyon.”

According to the PSA’s 2024 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), only 79% of senior high school graduates are functionally literate—able to read, write, and compute, but lacking reading comprehension skills.

“Despite the K-12 program, millions of Filipino youth still fail to understand what they read,” Castro noted, questioning how they can thrive in a knowledge-based economy without foundational skills.

Tinio blamed chronic underfunding of public education, stressing that the literacy crisis deepens inequality in already marginalized communities.

The two urged swift action, including the passage of House Bill 1783, mandating the allocation of at least 6% of the national GDP to education.