Outer space ambitions with a nation still buffering

Next year, the Philippines plans to launch a rocket into space.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced in his 2026 State of the Nation Address that a sounding-rocket test will be conducted from Cagayan.

Meanwhile, through the recent rains my home internet has been dead for 2 weeks. I have filed one service report after another, rebooted the router and watched the loading icon spin while work and school were expected to continue.

I was not alone. On several recent posts by my provider, the comment sections had become public complaint desks, filled with customers pleading for their connections to be restored.

Some received standard acknowledgments. Many others had no public response when I checked. My own service reports and public appeal were met with the same silence.

These comments cannot tell us the full scale of the problem. But they show how helpless families can become precisely when rain, flooding or poor air quality forces children out of classrooms and onto the very connections failing them.

If this can happen in Metro Manila—to a household that can afford a subscription and has spent two weeks asking for help—what happens to a child in a rural community whose family must choose between mobile data and dinner?

The ambition to reach space is exciting. But placed beside our failures on the ground, the contrast is painful.

Because whenever classes are suspended, the government’s solution is increasingly simple: send the children online.

The school closes.

The workplace does not.

The bills do not stop either.

Private-school parents continue paying tuition. Families pay for data, printing and electricity. Teachers spend their own money preparing materials. Parents lose working hours trying to keep children connected.

Everyone keeps paying.

But is every child still learning?

On paper, yes.

In reality, the connection disappears, the electricity flickers, and students are left staring at loading screens and worksheets they must understand on their own.

Then everyone calls it “learning continuity.”

For families with several gadgets, stable Wi-Fi, backup data and an adult who can stay home, online classes may be inconvenient but manageable.

For everyone else, it means siblings sharing one phone, families stretching their last pesos for data and children hunting for signal beside a window—or simply missing another day of school.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, only 48.8 percent of Filipino households had internet access at home in 2024.

More than half did not.

When the same storm closes the school, cuts the electricity and kills the signal, saan eksaktong mag-aaral ang bata—sa bubong?

WHO REALLY CARRIES THE BURDEN?

In many families, both parents must work because one income is no longer enough. In others, one parent carries everything. Rain may suspend classes, but it does not suspend rent, electricity bills or the price of food.

A market vendor cannot abandon a stall to teach fractions. A security guard cannot supervise an online class while on duty. A single mother cannot divide herself among work and three children in different grade levels.

Many children are left without an adult who can explain the lesson, fix the connection or notice that they have stopped trying.

And not every child can learn independently.

Some need concepts explained more than once. Some struggle with reading, attention or anxiety. Younger learners need supervision.

“Self-paced learning” ignores a basic truth:

children do not all learn at the same pace, and some cannot progress without guidance.

Teachers are trapped in the same arrangement. Many redesign lessons overnight, answer students beyond working hours and pay for data, printing and supplies themselves.

The government announces.

Teachers improvise.

Parents pay.

Children fall behind.

Then we blame the child.

A worksheet sent through Messenger is not automatically a lesson. A group-chat attendance record is not proof of learning. A photograph of completed homework does not prove the student understood it.

What exactly is continuing—education or paperwork?

INTERRUPTING A SYSTEM ALREADY IN CRISIS

This would be alarming even if Filipino students were doing well.

They are not.

The World Bank reported in 2026 that 91 percent of Filipino children around age 10 could not read and understand an age-appropriate text—a condition called learning poverty.

That rate was 30 percentage points worse than the average for lower-middle-income countries and 56 points worse than the East Asia and Pacific average.

Among 15-year-olds, only 24 percent of Filipino students reached minimum reading proficiency in the OECD’s 2022 international assessment. The OECD average was 74 percent.

We are not interrupting a successful education system.

We are repeatedly interrupting one already in crisis.

PROMISES AT ROCKET SPEED

The government speaks constantly about digitalization. We now have an E-Governance Act, a Konektadong Pinoy Act and a National Digital Connectivity Plan promising broader, faster and more affordable internet.

But the World Bank has described our digital progress as slow and broadband connectivity as weak. Using 2022 data, it found that the Philippines had only 28 mobile towers for every 100,000 people—around one-third of the ASEAN average.

Promises may move at rocket speed.

Implementation still buffers.

WHAT ACCOUNTABILITY LOOKS LIKE

Before emergencies, schools must identify students without devices, connectivity or adult supervision. Printed learning kits must be ready, followed by recovery sessions in reading and mathematics when classrooms reopen.

Teachers need connectivity and printing allowances. Low-income families need sustained device and data assistance—not programs that disappear with the headlines.

Internet providers must maintain human escalation channels, give realistic repair timelines, provide appropriate rebates for verified prolonged outages and face enforceable standards for service reliability.

The National Telecommunications Commission must publish a scorecard showing outages, complaints, response times and resolution rates by provider.

What gets measured gets managed.

What remains hidden remains unfixed.

Government must measure whether children actually learned—not merely whether assignments were sent and submitted.

There is no learning continuity without continuity of access. And access means more than a gadget. It means electricity, connectivity, guidance and time.

Parents cannot continue paying the financial and educational cost of a system that declares learning uninterrupted simply because a worksheet was uploaded.

So yes, let us launch a rocket into space.

But before celebrating how high the Philippines can go, perhaps we should ask why so many Filipino children still cannot connect from the ground.

Because when there is no classroom, no electricity, no device, no signal and no adult available to help, let us call it what it is at this stage.

Not alternative learning.

For too many children—no learning at all.