Education as a mirror of our politics
Filipinos are no strangers to political outrage. Social media is flooded with tirades against the Marcoses, the Dutertes and the so-called “dilawan” or “pinklawan” opposition.
We have perfected the art of blaming politicians for everything—from potholes to inflation, from corruption scandals to natural disasters. Often, our anger is justified. Politicians have failed us repeatedly, enriching themselves while ordinary citizens struggle to survive.
Yet the uncomfortable truth is that our politics is not an alien force imposed from above. It is a reflection of who we are and the institutions we have built or allowed to decay.
Perhaps the clearest mirror is our education system. When someone asks, “Magalit tayo sa mga politiko, pero maayos ba tayo sa hanay natin?” it hits a nerve, because our schools and universities reveal the very dysfunctions we condemn in government.
Education is riddled with the same problems that plague our politics: mismanagement, lack of accountability and deep inequities. Just as politicians promise reform but fail to deliver, education leaders unveil policies such as K to 12, blended learning and competency-based instruction without first ensuring that schools have the infrastructure to make them work.
Teachers, much like public servants, are overworked and underpaid, expected to produce miracles with scarce resources and minimal support. Students are pushed through a system that values compliance over curiosity, memorization over inquiry and appearance over substance. The obsession with outputs has replaced the pursuit of understanding. It is the same logic that drives our politics, where spectacle often stands in for service.
The parallels are even sharper when we look at inequality. In politics, the wealthy and well-connected dominate because they control resources and machinery.
In education, elite private schools provide small classes, technology, and global exposure, while public schools make do with overcrowded classrooms, outdated textbooks and overburdened teachers. Politics breeds dynasties; education reproduces deprivation. Both systems keep the poor where they are—on the margins.
We often forget that education is not only about producing workers but about forming citizens. A failing education system produces a misinformed electorate, one that becomes easy prey for fake news, celebrity politics, and patronage.
When schools fail to nurture critical thinking, civic responsibility and ethical reasoning, the damage shows up at the ballot box. The quality of our politics can rise no higher than the quality of our classrooms.
A country that tolerates sixty students per teacher, that drowns educators in paperwork instead of professional development, and that treats science as optional and history as disposable should not be surprised when its politics is shallow, polarized and easily manipulated.
Poor education leads to poor politics, which then neglects education even further. The cycle is vicious, and breaking it requires more than angry rants on Facebook. It requires sustained investment, institutional reform and collective responsibility.
It is easy to demonize Marcos loyalists or mock the DDS base. It is just as easy to dismiss progressives as self-righteous or detached.
But trading insults across political camps does nothing to heal the deeper rot. The harder task is to look inward and ask how we, as citizens and educators, reproduce the dysfunction we claim to despise.
In our classrooms, do we reward obedience more than curiosity? Do we silence dissent rather than encourage debate? Do we teach history as reflection, or do we sanitize it for comfort and convenience? These habits spill over into politics, where questioning authority is branded as destabilization and uncomfortable truths are erased from collective memory.
If we are serious about reform, education must change not only what it teaches but how it teaches. Real transformation is cultural, not cosmetic.
It begins by reducing class sizes so that teachers can actually teach and students can be heard. It continues with professional development that prepares educators to be mentors in civic life, not mere deliverers of content.
It means funding schools adequately and treating education as a national covenant rather than a line item in the budget. Most of all, it means seeing education as a public good rather than a privilege for the few.
When every Filipino child—regardless of wealth, region, or background—has access to quality education, we build citizens who are harder to deceive and more capable of demanding accountability. A well-educated electorate is the most reliable defense against demagoguery. It can tell the difference between promises and propaganda, and between leadership and performance.
Until that happens, railing against politicians will remain a hollow ritual. Our politics will never rise above the quality of our education. We can laugh at the absurdities of our leaders, curse corruption, and mock the factions that divide us, but if we stop there, we only scratch the surface. The more honest work is to admit that our education system reflects the very state of our nation: chaotic, unequal, and underperforming.
If we truly want to fix the country, we must begin by fixing our schools. Only when we educate better citizens can we hope to elect better leaders. The mirror is right in front of us. The question is whether we have the courage to face it.
Arlyne C. Marasigan ([email protected]) is a professor at the College of Advanced Studies and a fellow at the Educational Policy Research and Development Office of the Philippine Normal University. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Philippine Normal University.
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