I can't stress enough the importance of having good communication skills, or having broad knowledge in English which is the universal language. This is important in business, schools, works and in almost every aspect.
But it seems that we have this "take it for granted approach" to this issue. We take pride of the recognition that Philippines is the best English-speaking country in Asia, but perhaps time would come when other Asian countries would beat us. Both education and the people are responsible for this. The former is not good enough and the latter is not interested enough.
Let me be more harsh this time. I see plain stupidity among us. When we hear a kid speaking in English, we would say: " Oh such a little cute child, he's very smart".
But if we hear a young lady doing the same we would say: " Arte! Trying hard.".
The truth is we envy those who can speak well in English, but instead of showing appreciation we criticize them because again some of us are crabs.
But when we are in a situation that requires us to use the language like job interview...we sweat, we tremble and we utter the names of all the saints alphabetically.
Let's just grow please.