Former Defense Secretary and senatorial candidate Gilbert (GIBO) Teodoro wants to bring back language classes in the college curriculum to expand the linguistics skills of Filipinos. Learning other languages provide additional job and livelihood opportunities for our people, he said.

Gibo Teodoro, a former Tarlac congressman, said learning other international languages aside from English is a significant skill to acquire amid globalization and with the Philippines being promoted as a tourism destination and investment hub for multinational companies.

“We need to prepare our students with basic language skills because we are an international destination for tourism and investments,” Gibo Teodoro said. “We need the widest amount of linguistics skills possible.”

Gibo Teodoro, the 1989 Bar topnotcher, added that expanding the linguistics skills of Filipinos will help the country to attract more investments from multinational companies, especially from the business process management sector.

Aside from bringing back the language classes, the senatorial candidate said that there is also a need to improve language training in the country.

Among the most in-demand languages include Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish due to the large population speaking these languages around the globe, as well as other European languages such as French, German, and Portuguese, among others. Asian languages like Japanese and Korean also have increasing demand.