THE Senate Committee on Basic Education and Culture on Monday started tackling a measure that aims to redefine the use of mother tongue as medium of instruction.

Senate Bill 2457 filed by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian states that except for monolingual classes from Kindergarten to Grade 3, the delivery of basic education shall be in Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English.

Gatchalian stressed the need to address challenges surrounding the implementation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education.

The proposal seeks the use of regional languages as auxiliary media of instruction, which he said is a flexible approach provided under the Constitution.

Gatchalian’s proposal provides, however, that the principles and framework of the MTB-MLE shall continue in monolingual classes, which refer to groups of learners who speak the same mother tongue and are enrolled in the same grade level.

The use of the MTB-MLE was institutionalized in the Enhanced Basic Education of 2013 or the K to 12 Law.

The senator pointed out that while the 2020 Census of Population and Housing shows that there are about 245 reported languages in the country, the Department of Education officially covers only 19 languages in implementing MTB-MLE.

Gatchalian said that some of the widely spoken languages such as Boholano, Masbateño, and Kankanaey are not covered by the 19 languages used by the DepEd.