It has been 25 years since the Philippine bilingual education policy was adopted. Filipino language scholars reflecting on the state of bilingual education in the country today are cautiously pessimistic about the policy's success. But they also appear to subscribe to the pragmatic argument for its maintenance, despite its weaknesses. This essay discusses the limits of this attitude to the bilingual education policy and casts doubt on long-held assumptions about Filipino bilinguals and language use in the Philippine classroom. The essay proposes as an alternative paradigm the adoption of multilingualism in PHilippine education.