TL;DR: DepEd's official Filipino Curriculum Guide is a single PDF, titled "FINAL MATATAG FILIPINO CG 2023 Grades 2-10," published directly on deped.gov.ph under the Revised K to 10 Curriculum page. It sets the standards and competencies for Filipino from Grade 2 through Grade 10; Grade 1 is covered separately by the Language and Reading and Literacy guides. Mother Tongue is no longer a standalone subject, and since Republic Act No. 12027 it is no longer the medium of instruction in Kindergarten to Grade 3 either: under DepEd Order No. 020, s. 2025, Filipino and English are the primary media from SY 2025-2026. As of SY 2026-2027, most grades already teach the MATATAG version, with Grades 6, 9, and 10 transitioning in this school year.
If you searched "curriculum guide Filipino" hoping to find the actual document DepEd teachers use to plan lessons, most of what comes up first is third-party mirrors, lesson-plan blogs, and paid PDF resellers. The real file sits on deped.gov.ph itself, free to download, alongside every other subject's revised curriculum guide. This post walks through what the Filipino CG actually covers, which grades it applies to right now, how it changed under the MATATAG curriculum revision, and exactly where to get the official copy instead of a reformatted third-party version.
What Is the DepEd Filipino Curriculum Guide?
A Curriculum Guide (CG) is DepEd's official document setting the content standards, performance standards, and learning competencies for a subject, organized by grade level and quarter. For Filipino, the current version is titled "FINAL MATATAG FILIPINO CG 2023," and it covers Grades 2 through 10 in one combined PDF, published on DepEd's own site as part of the MATATAG curriculum revision launched in August 2023.
A CG is not the same document teachers use week to week in the classroom. That is a separate file called a Budget of Work (BOW), which breaks the CG's competencies down into a week-by-week teaching schedule for each quarter. If you are looking for weekly lesson plans rather than the standards document, you want the BOW, not the CG, though both trace back to the same curriculum guide.
Disclaimer: DepEd periodically issues amendments and clarificatory memos to curriculum guides. Always download directly from deped.gov.ph and check the file's revision date before using it for lesson planning.
Which Grades Does the Filipino CG Cover?
| Grade | Filipino CG Coverage | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten | Not applicable | Covered by the Kindergarten CG (integrated learning areas) |
| Grade 1 | Not a standalone Filipino subject | Covered by the Grade 1 Language CG and the Grade 1 Reading and Literacy CG |
| Grades 2-10 | Filipino CG applies | Single combined PDF, "FINAL MATATAG FILIPINO CG 2023 Grades 2-10" |
DepEd's subject map for Grade 1 lists GMRC, Language, Makabansa, Mathematics, and Reading and Literacy, with no separate "Filipino" line. Filipino appears as its own named subject starting in Grade 2, running through Grade 10 as one of the seven to eight learning areas a junior high school student carries each year, alongside English, Mathematics, Science, Araling Panlipunan, MAPEH, and Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao/Values Education.
How Did MATATAG Change the Filipino Curriculum?
MATATAG replaced the pre-2023 K-12 Filipino curriculum with a version built around fewer, more tightly defined competencies, part of DepEd's broader effort to cut curriculum congestion across every subject. For full detail on why MATATAG happened and what changed system-wide, including the documented PISA scores that drove the reform, see our MATATAG explainer.
For Filipino specifically, the most visible structural change is what happened to Mother Tongue. Under the outgoing K-12 curriculum, Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) was a standalone subject through Grade 3. Under MATATAG's current subject map, Mother Tongue does not appear as its own line; early literacy sits in the Grade 1 Language and Reading and Literacy guides, and Filipino picks up as a named subject in Grade 2.
A second, later change removed the mother tongue as the language early grades are taught in, which is a different question from whether it is a subject. Republic Act No. 12027, which lapsed into law on October 10, 2024, amended RA 10533 to discontinue the mother tongue as the medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3, allowing it optionally in monolingual classes. DepEd Order No. 020, s. 2025, issued July 3, 2025, implements this: beginning SY 2025-2026 the primary media of instruction for Kindergarten to Grade 3 are Filipino and English, with Filipino Sign Language for deaf and hard-of-hearing learners under RA 11106, and regional languages serving as auxiliary media through translanguaging. The same order expressly rescinds the language provisions for Key Stage 1 in DepEd Order No. 010, s. 2024, the MATATAG implementation guidelines, so any MATATAG material describing Grade 1 as taught in the first language predates the current rule.
In practice that means Filipino now carries more of the early-grade load than the curriculum guides alone suggest. Where a class has no shared first language, DO 020 directs that Filipino be used to teach Language, Reading and Literacy, Filipino, GMRC, and Makabansa, with English used for English, and Science and Mathematics in whichever of the two learners meet more often day to day. A monolingual class may still use its own language as the main medium, but only where DepEd's readiness criteria are met, which for a language other than Filipino or English include an orthography and vocabulary approved and published by the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, a basic grammar book, available literature, and teachers trained to teach in it. The implementing rules for RA 12027 were separately circulated to the field under DepEd Memorandum No. 059, s. 2025.
The Filipino CG itself is organized around the core language skill areas familiar to anyone who has taught or studied under the K-12 system: listening and reading as receptive skills, and speaking and writing as productive skills, with viewing and presentation treated as a further domain. Exact competency wording, and how those domains are sequenced grade by grade, is spelled out in the CG PDF itself, not reliably summarized secondhand, so treat any blog post (including this one) as a pointer to the source document rather than a replacement for it.
Where Do I Download the Official Filipino Curriculum Guide?
Go directly to DepEd's Revised K to 10 Curriculum page on deped.gov.ph. It lists every MATATAG subject guide as a direct PDF download, including the Filipino CG. The current direct file link is:
Avoid downloading curriculum guides from unofficial resharing sites where you cannot confirm the file matches DepEd's current published version. Reseller sites in particular sometimes charge for what DepEd gives away free, or host outdated pre-MATATAG copies without saying so.
How Does the Filipino CG Relate to Grading?
The CG sets what a Filipino teacher is required to teach and assess; it does not set how those assessments are weighted into a report card grade. That is governed separately by DepEd's grading policy, most recently updated for SY 2026-2027. See our DepEd grading system guide for exactly how Written Work, Performance Tasks, and Exams are weighted for language subjects like Filipino, and how that weighting differs from a subject like Mathematics or Science.
Is Filipino Different Once a Student Reaches Senior High School?
Yes, structurally. MATATAG covers Kindergarten through Grade 10 only; it does not touch Senior High School. Filipino continues as a core subject in Grades 11-12 under the current SHS curriculum, and it remains a mandatory core subject under DepEd's incoming Strengthened SHS Curriculum as well, which begins full rollout in Grade 11 starting SY 2026-2027. For everything that changes in Senior High School itself, including the retirement of the old strand system, see our strengthened SHS curriculum guide.
Buwan ng Wika and the Filipino Curriculum
August's National Language Month (Buwan ng Wika) is not part of the Filipino CG itself, but schools commonly time culminating Filipino-subject activities, reading programs, and oratorical contests to coincide with it. If you're a parent trying to understand what your child's school is doing every August and how it ties back to the Filipino subject, see our Buwan ng Wika guide for the schedule and typical school activities.
Practical Tips for Parents and Teachers
- Download straight from deped.gov.ph. Third-party copies can be outdated, incomplete, or reformatted in ways that drop appendices.
- Match the CG to your child's actual grade. Because MATATAG rolled out in phases, a Grade 9 student in SY 2026-2027 may still be on different competencies than a Grade 4 student, even within the same school year.
- Ask the school which BOW they follow. The CG sets standards; the Budget of Work sets the weekly pacing. Schools may adapt pacing within DepEd guidelines, so the classroom experience can vary even under the same CG.
- Check the file's issue date. DepEd occasionally issues revised or corrected versions of a CG; the filename and any accompanying memorandum will indicate the version.
Ready to find the right school? Browse schools or compare curriculum, tuition, and reviews across hundreds of Philippine schools on SchoolFinderPH.
Sources
- DepEd — Revised K to 10 Curriculum (official)
- DepEd — FINAL MATATAG FILIPINO CG 2023, Grades 2-10 (official PDF)
- DepEd — MATATAG Curriculum Phase 1, SY 2024-2025 (official)
- Republic Act No. 12027 — discontinuing the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3 (LawPhil, official text)
- DepEd Order No. 020, s. 2025 — Policy on the Medium of Instruction for Kindergarten to Grade 3 Effective School Year 2025-2026 (official PDF)
- DepEd Memorandum No. 059, s. 2025 — Dissemination of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of RA 12027 (official issuance page)
- SchoolFinderPH — MATATAG Curriculum Guide
- SchoolFinderPH — DepEd Curriculum Guides Hub
