From Plow to Ballpen to Diaper by Claudio V. Tabotabo, MA (January, 2008)

Perhaps the clergyman who was also a teacher in the Philippines during the Spanish time had only one problem in the classroom. There were Spanish children but the natives were in farms helping their parents. The natives who were the core of the clergyman’s mission seemed to be far from school.

Life revolved around the farm, it was the orientation of the Filipino family. It was not that Filipinos did not love to learn the rudiments of the Catholic faith. They only found the farm the direct answer of their economic problems. Or the Filipinos did notice other areas of the academe more particularly the subject on self-governance Or Filipinos did not like the “Informal Education” which was the only type of education the Spaniards could give. So the Filipinos who were inferior in physical stature but smarter than their colonizers opted to stay in the farm and enjoy the day under the sun.

Thinking that Filipinos wanted something practical the Spaniards offered trade schools, and as reported established in 1863, but the number of indios going to school remained small.

The Americans came bringing the educational system that is anchored on Booker T. Washington’s proclamation of Vocational Education. Although Filipinos still considered farm labor a source of income, the Americans were not so much challenged by the Filipinos’ indifference to education. The number of natives going to school had considerably increased.

Filipinos began to see education as their avenue towards decent living. They found education the ax that will break the chain that bound them for centuries in the farm. Education for the Filipinos is a magic balm that will put them in alignment with their American masters. But what the Filipinos liked is education without manual labor. In 1925 the Monroe Commission reported a lament on the white-collar orientation of education.

Well it is not the purpose of this paper to analyze the educational system of the Americans in the Philippines. But there must be a paper that will say something about the Vocational Education brought by the Americans. Again it must be education that would direct the Filipinos towards self-governance, and not just to train as technicians, carpenters, welders or care-givers.

The Americans wanted to see the Filipinos as the best workers of the world, and indeed it is what the Filipinos are today. They are the best caregivers and the most fluent English-speaking maids in the Middle East.

There is nothing wrong for Filipinos working abroad. But they must not confine to it. Care giving alone could not govern a country.