I recently saw an error in a textbook that made me laugh so hard I nearly fell off our heavily funded but shoddily built footbridge!

I saw this written in a Grade 7 MAPEH (Music, Arts, PE and Health) textbook which is used by some of the biggest private schools in the country: BANANA RICE TERECES.

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Only three words — two major errors!

I recently discovered after conducting a meticulous process of evaluation that two more textbooks — developed and published by the Department of Education and in current use in public schools — are full of errors.

The 363-page Grade 3 “English Learner’s Material” written by 15 “authors” and reviewed by three “reviewers” has 430 errors, while the Grade 3 “Araling Panlipunan Learner’s Material” written by Manalo, Capunitan, Galarosa and Sampang — a veritable joke book that is so funny simply because of its sheer stupidity — contains 1,308 errors!

Here are some of those errors:

Manila is near the equator that’s why its temperature is low and sometimes it rises.

The Philippines is an island of 7,100 islands.

Palay is the main food of Filipinos.

The Pasig River flows through many rivers before it exits into Manila Bay.

Negritoes first inhabited Romblon in 1870; the Panays and the Bicols also lived there in 1870.

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The KIPLING is a thin biscuit made from rice; houses in Lucban are filled with decorative KIPLING.

The waterfalls of Laguna are vast.

The Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda hid in the jungles of Lubang Island in 1974.

Places that have the biggest population have the most number of people.

Taal Volcano is immersed in Taal Lake.

Mt. Pinatubo is located in Zambales and Pampanga.

Pants made of silk are worn by male fishermen and farmers of Mindoro.

The government, which wants to hasten the production of people, is responsible for erecting streets and piers for airplanes and ships.

The mayor did many things such as muddy cement and dilapidated roads.

Identify the provincial leaders who were NOT ELECTED by the people.

People from India are called Bombay.

Agta children do not wash their hands before eating.

Mangyan children do not take a bath.

Our ancestors hung jewelry in between their teeth.

From Laguna the highway will pass going to Quezon.

We ride vehicles to get to our schools which use oil to run.

Batangas and Bataan, which are rich in marine resources, are brought to the market.

The product of a province may be textile factories.

A large portion of the egg comes from Batangas because of its poultries.

Do not expect to hear any negative comments or violent

reactions from supposedly concerned stakeholders of the biggest Philippine schools, both public and private, as they are so very busy counting the embarrassingly humongous amount of money they are making from the trade and commerce of these “educational” commodities.

For how can they badmouth something which brings them so much financial benefits and wealth?

The sad truth remains: error-riddled textbooks are defective products that harm their end-users and consumers.

The damage they inflict is pernicious, profound and permanent. They lead to the miseducation of Filipino schoolchildren which in turn affects, in a most negative way, their chances of enrolling in good or better schools, or landing good jobs when they graduate.

Their miseducation practically condemns them to a life of unmitigated ignorance and poverty.

It is their potential and possibility, their very future and fate that the makers of substandard textbooks are toying and trifling with.

ANTONIO CALIPJO GO, academic supervisor, Marian School of Quezon City

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