HOUSE Minority Leader and 4Ps Party-list Representative Marcelino Libanan urged the Department of Education to include the study of other foreign languages in the school curriculum.

In his House Resolution 910, Libanan urged DepEd to consider the inclusion of other language aside from English saying that Filipino students can draw inspiration from national hero Jose Rizal, who developed a passion to learn foreign languages.

“Our school system by tradition has been teaching Filipino children to emulate and aspire to be like Rizal. We might as well encourage them to study foreign languages, just like Rizal,” he said.

He added that Rizal was fluent in Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Sanskrit, Spanish and Swedish because of his fascination with foreign languages.

Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte, in her 2023 Basic Education Report, declared that DepEd intends to revise and improve the K to 12 program.

“The whole world has become a global village with multilingual labor markets, thus creating a strong demand for workers with foreign language skills,” Libanan said in his resolution.

The lawmaker added that exposing young learners to foreign languages will vastly improve their employability in the global labor markets of the 21st century.

He pointed out that global corporations based in the United States, China and Japan have been known to prefer hiring staff who can speak a second foreign language besides English.