First of two parts

ON July 23, 2024, the Senate passed on third reading Senate Bill (SB) 2457 or Discontinuing the Use of the Mother Tongue as the Medium of Instruction, which was introduced by Senators Sherwin Gatchalian and Ramon Revilla Jr. It naturally created a stir in the Philippine education and linguistics community, which pushed for mother tongue education in the country. The issue is quite a compelling one, so I shall take a pause in my series of articles on migration linguistics to add a few words to the ongoing discussion on mother tongue-based multilingual education policy in the Philippines.