Editing Literacy (section)

====Philippines====
{{main|Baybayin}}
About 91.6% of Filipinos ages 10–64 were functionally literate in 2019, according to the results of the 2019 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey; this translates to around 73.0 million out of the population of 79.7 million.<ref name="Functional-Literacy-Rate-Philippine-Statistics-Authority" />
Starting in 300 BCE, early Filipinos devised and used their own writing system derived from the Brahmic family of scripts of [[ancient India]]. [[Baybayin]] became the most widespread of these derived scripts by the 11th century. Early chroniclers, who came during the first Spanish expeditions to the islands, noted the proficiency of some of the natives, especially the chieftain and local kings, in [[Sanskrit]], [[Old Javanese]], [[Old Malay]], and several other languages.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Viasat vs HughesNet Satellite Internet |url=http://bibingka.com/dahon/lci/lci.htm}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |year=2003 |title=Over the edge of the world: Magellan's terrifying circumnavigation of the globe |url=https://archive.org/details/overedgeofworl00berg}}</ref>

During the Spanish colonization of the islands, reading materials were destroyed far less than during the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Education and literacy were introduced solely to the [[Peninsulares]] and remained a privilege until the arrival of Americans, who introduced a public school system to the country, and English became the ''lingua franca'' in the Philippines. During the brief [[Japanese occupation of the Philippines]], the Japanese were able to teach their language and teach the children their written language.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}