The whole person dilemma
When I was growing up, I was taught that being a student meant more than getting good grades. My grandfather, Feliciano Roxas Rodriguez, Sr., taught me that first. Born in 1910, he was a mechanical engineer, a former dean of mechanical engineering at the Mapua Institute of Technology, a textile engineering consultant, an amateur boxer, and an epicure.
He belonged to a generation shaped by the classical “mens sana in corpore sano”—a sound mind in a sound body—an ethos that influenced early Philippine higher education.
Athleticism, intellectual achievement, and cultural refinement were not seen as competing pursuits; they belonged to the making of a person. My grandfather did not believe that anyone should live inside one identity, teaching me to value a Renaissance life where intellectual work, physical discipline, creativity, and curiosity could coexist.
The pursuits that make a person whole
I graduated from high school in 1997, when the government department overseeing us was still called the Department of Education, Culture, and Sports (DECS). Those three words reflected how I understood growing up: you studied, played a sport, tried the arts, and joined activities to find where your talents and effort would flourish.
I swam in grade school and later competed in karatedo alongside Cristy Ramos-Jalasco in the Association for the Advancement of Karate. She fascinated me because sports were such a visible part of her life, moving into karatedo in her 30s while her father, former President Fidel Ramos, actively supported athletics.
Watching her reinforced what I learned at home—that physical ability and competition were essential to an education.
My interests expanded to theater (production, not acting), painting, drawing, and writing. Theater taught me creative thinking, active listening, and working with big personalities. Painting offered room to experiment with no single correct answer and the courage to start all over again.
Meanwhile, writing built observation and judgment, while swimming taught endurance against the clock and the mindset that you are competing primarily against yourself. Karatedo demanded discipline, control, grit, and the grace to accept a loss and return to training.
A holistic education depends entirely on access
I acknowledge the privilege behind my childhood. My parents and grandfather paid for my training, equipment, physical therapy, art supplies, and facility access.
That changed in college when the Asian financial crisis hit my family’s business. Times were hard, and I stopped competing internationally to concentrate on my studies, as my family could no longer support my extracurricular interests.
That financial fall from grace taught me that a holistic education depends entirely on access. Talent, enthusiasm, and interest are not enough—a child needs facilities, equipment, coaches, and sustained investment. My family tried to provide for those, but most Filipino families cannot.
Education and deficits in numbers
So, my nostalgia for DECS becomes complicated. The Philippines struggles with basic educational needs. DepEd reported a classroom deficit of 165,000 in 2026. The national budget allocated P11.8 billion for school feeding for about three million undernourished kindergarten and elementary pupils.
Then there are the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results: only 16 percent of Filipino 15-year-olds reached minimum proficiency in mathematics in 2022, compared with 69 percent across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. Reading was 24 percent and science 23 percent.
In 2001, Republic Act 9155 renamed DECS as the Department of Education, giving DepEd a focused mandate for basic education while culture and sports moved to specialized agencies like the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Philippine Sports Commission.
Large government systems need clear mandates for accountability, but specialization has led to some sort of fragmentation. A child experiences one cohesive school day, but the state approaches them through separate agencies, budgets, and mandates.
What’s “useful” and what’s a “bonus”
Today, education conversations increasingly revolve around STEM, but I become uneasy when “usefulness” determines which forms of learning deserve space and which can be parked—relegated to a bonus rather than forming part of a holistic curriculum, designed to cultivate a complete person.
A future scientist needs imagination, a budding engineer needs judgment, and a doctor needs empathy and sustained stamina for further learning.
This is why Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology offers an interesting comparison. While Japan’s schools face their own issues with pressure and conformity, keeping these domains in the same national conversation reflects a connected view of human growth—recognizing that technical competence without creative and physical discipline remains incomplete.
The Philippines does not need to recreate DECS or bring back old bureaucracy. But it requires coordination around shared goals for child development. A public school student should have access to the experiences my family paid for: a place to play, a teacher who encourages deep thought, art materials, a school stage, and a coach who teaches physical and nutritional discipline.
What I remember most about growing up under DECS was that I wasn’t expected to be excellent at everything—I was simply encouraged to try. That impetus should not belong only to children whose parents can afford it, but everyone else should be afforded the same, too.
Education, culture, and sports now have separate government offices, but ultimately, their responsibility to the child must be integrated and indivisible.
Technical competence without creative and physical discipline remains incomplete.
