Our shrinking English proficient work force
In this country of 7,100 islands where 170 living languages are spoken, it’s amazing how we became a bilingual nation, adopting both Filipino and English as official languages for communication and instruction. Filipinos can’t claim to be native English speakers as much as we would like to, but our work force can speak, write and read in this language better than our Asian neighbors. At least, that’s what we used to believe—that our proficiency in English is our biggest competitive advantage in the region.