BRIGADA PAGBASA ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN

Introduction:

Although the Philippines has a basic literacy rate of more than 88.5%, pockets of illiteracy remain.
According to the Department of Education, there are more than 1 million pre-literates in the country and
more than 6 million people are deemed to be functionally illiterate. The causes of illiteracy are many and
varied. The fact that it is frequently linked with poverty or difficult living condition suggests that some of the
causes of illiteracy in the Philippines could be the inadequate provision of schools, an inadequate number
of properly trained teachers, lack of books at home and lack of stimulation as to the importance of reading,
and the economic situation of families that make education for their children a low priority. There are also
other causes, such as disabilities, that remain undiagnosed and unserved. There are social and cultural
priorities and values (e.g. gender) that make one set of children more likely to be educated than another.
There are huge numbers of children, not least among them orphans and street children, who never get the
chance to go to school at all. In this regard, to help and find solutions on the literacy issues the Philippines
has been facing and to cultivate and assess learners’ reading skills, the Department of Education (DepEd)
encouraged teachers, parents, and other reading specialists to use the Reading Progress Tool, a self-
instructional application that can aid teachers in helping their learners enhance their reading proficiency
and develop a love for reading.

A. In connection with the points previously mentioned, DepEd Central Office and External Partners
converged and initiated Brigada Pagbasa campaign aims to help Filipino children to become functionally
literate and contributes to empowering parents, caregivers, community volunteers, and education
stakeholders within the context of transparency and local accountability by creating a link between partners
and vulnerable communities to support last-mile learners and ensure access to after-school structured
literacy development programs. These literacy initiatives indeed deeply anchored with DM 048 s. 2021
entitled “2021 Brigada Eskwela Implementing Guidelines” and DM 062 s. 2022 entitled “2022 Brigada
Eskwela Implementing Guidelines” stressed-outing the significance of Brigada Pagbasa as part of
Brigada Eskwela as after-school reading program in response to DM 173, s. 2019 Hamon: Bawat Bata
Bumabasa or DepEd 3Bs Initiative. It serves as a platform to synergize efforts and resources to address
education-related challenges especially on literacy and numeracy. It will also create opportunities for all
stakeholders to contribute possible solutions to the current gaps in the country’s education system,
especially in equipping the learners with 21 st century skills. Likewise, this Brigada Pagbasa has something
to do with the administration of Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (PHIL-IRI) in public elementary and
secondary schools in the division of City of San Jose del Monte as stipulated in DM 266 s. 2010 Philippine
Informal Reading Inventory (PHIL-IRI) Reporting and Database System.

B. In same way around, DepEd-Region III Thrust in support of Brigada Pagbasa with the successful
launching of Brigada Eskwela 2022 at the Department of Education (DepEd) Central Office on August 1,
2022, in line with the DepEd Memorandum No. 062 s. 2022 Brigada Eskwela Implementing Guidelines, the
Department of Education Regional Office III (DepEd RO III) through Education Support Services Division
(ESSD) announced and fully supported the REGIONAL SEARCH FOR 2022 BRIGADA ESKWELA BEST
IMPLEMENTING SCHOOLS as well as the giving of BRIGADA PAGBASA ADVOCACY AWARD as
stipulated in RM 475, s. 2022 to highly recognize the exemplary efforts of the schools in the implementation
of Brigada Eskwela Program and Brigada Pagbasa Campaign, and recognize the unparalleled
commitment, support, and assistance of the education partners in providing quality, accessible, safe and
conducive learning environment for the learners as well as to ensure collective efforts from various
partnership engagements, creating a safe learning environment for the learners, teaching and non-teaching
personnel, and community to achieve safety while ensuring the delivery of quality education. This
BRIGADA PAGBASA ADVOCACY AWARD intensified Schools' Collaboration with Stakeholders and
Partners, Brigada Pagbasa Volunteerism (Reading Tutors and Learners), and of course Provision and
Production of Reading Resources and Materials.

C. In this connection, to ensure quality delivery of teaching instruction amidst and beyond pandemic DepEd
– SDO of San Jose Del Monte in support of the Brigada Pagbasa of the Department of Education (DepEd)
hereby released the Five-Year Schools Division Implementation of Project Basahusay as a division –
initiated reading program which aims to establish a Reading Magic Center in every school and turn every
classroom into a literacy-rich instructional space and to make every San Joseno learner proficient in
reading through the creation and implementation of the Two ARCs of Reading namely the Advanced
Reading Curriculum (ARC1) and the Authentic Reading Culture (ARC2) in all the schools and grade levels
across the division as stipulated in SDM # 343, s. 2022 and initiated the launching of BRIGADA PAGBASA
with PROJECT K-SAMA (Kaagapay, Ka-partners sa Malasakit sa Pagbasa) a Community Extension
Home-based Reading Camp in support to the celebration of the National Reading Month and SDO’s
Reading Advocacy as well as Reading Program. Pursuant to Regional Memorandum No. 371 s. 2021,
DepEd-SDO of City of San Jose del Monte announced DIVISION SEARCH FOR BRIGADA ESKWELA
(BE) IMPLEMENTING SCHOOLS as well as the contextualized selection criteria for 2021 and 2022
Brigada Eskwela Best Implementing Schools Award under the COVID- 19 pandemic. This Brigada Eskwela
Best Implementing Schools Award aims to recognize schools’ exemplary effort in the implementation of
Brigada Eskwela under COVID-19 pandemic; and underscore schools’ partnership engagement with
various stakeholders to support the implementation of BE-LCOP in ensuring that quality basic education is
provided to the learners despite the challenges brought by COVID- 19 pandemic as stipulated in SDM 338,
s. 2021 and SDM 344, s. 2022. Indeed, these literacy initiatives indeed create a tremendous impact to our
education system of nowadays and truly make a difference to the lives of the young San Joseño Learners
in coping with some demands in our education system today.

D. In response to Hamon: Bawat Bata Bumabasa (3Bs Initiative) of the Department of Education and the
Division of San Jose del Monte Implementation of Project Basahusay (Exemplareaders) in full support for
Brigada Pagbasa of the Department of Education, Graceville National High School wholeheartedly initiated
PROJECT BIBA as an school-based reading intervention program that aims and truly provides additional
reading strategies and activities to boost reading skills in the areas of decoding, comprehension, and
fluency for struggling readers as well as non-readers. This school-based intervention program is truly a part
with the School Reading Program (SRP) Project TRTL (Today we Read, Tomorrow we Lead) aims to
provide an effective, user-friendly and easy to comprehend learning reading methods to learners who are
significantly below grade reading literacy, utilize and establish a Reading Magic Center in school as a
center for communicative competence and venue for learners development in reading and turn every
classroom into a literacy-rich instructional space, a reader friendly atmosphere and most of all to foster to
GRACEVILLIAN Learners the life-long love for reading. Lastly, Graceville National High School truly
intensified the Reading Program and Intervention initiated by the Schools Division Office because the
school believes that Reading is essential and serves as a basic building block for learning.