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Past and present language issues in the Philippines have become the subject of
popular discussions after concerned citizens stepped up their campaign against the
Commission on Higher Educations decision to remove Filipino subjects from the
new general education curriculum.
As a result, some language myths have resurfaced, with regionalists and diehard
English crusaders leading the attacks against the national language.
The points discussed here seek to debunk some language myths and hopefully
convince the middle class and the elite that retaining Filipino subjects in college and
using the national language as a medium of instruction in a number of subjects are
beneficial to Filipinos in general.
1. Filipino is an imposition of imperial Manila. The multilingual composition of the
Surian ng Wikang Pambansa, or the Institute of the National Language (INL),
established in the 1930s to recommend a Philippine language as the basis for the
national language, proves that this is nonfactual. (See Table 1.)
The decision to choose Tagalog as the basis of the national language is clearly a
consensus among board members of the INL. The failure of the embers of
regionalism to stop the rapid spread of Filipino throughout the archipelago is further
proof that ordinary Filipinos are very supportive of the national language and
linguistic regionalism is an idea rather limited to the English-speaking elites and
some middle-class citizens in the regions.
4. It is more practical to use English rather than Filipino as the countrys lingua
franca.
This is one of the most absurd myths about English and Filipino.
One, English is not at all related to any Philippine language (with the exception of
Chabacano, which was, originally a Spanish-based creole), thus it is very difficult for
most ordinary Filipinos to really learn English and use it as a lingua franca.
Two, as of 2010, less than 1 percent of households in the Philippines used English as
their main language. How can such a foreign language be our lingua franca? In
contrast, the number of citizens who use Tagalog (which serves as the main basis
for the national language) as their language has steadily increased. Speakers of
other Philippine languages easily learn Filipino because their languages belong to
the same language family. (See Table 3.)
Three, the subpar national mean percentage scores of students in elementary and
secondary schools also show that our facility with the English language is
problematic. The official passing rate is 70 percent.
5. Using Filipino as a medium of instruction will negatively affect students facility
with the English language.
This claim is not supported by any research. In fact, the experiences of developed
Scandinavian countries, where their respective national languages are used from
primary to tertiary education and where English is taught only as a subject,
demonstrate that the Philippine obsession with Englishwhich began when the
Americans imposed it as the sole medium of instruction at all levels in 1906is
unhealthy.
The students deteriorating facility with the English language can instead be
attributed to the general decline or at least stagnating quality of Philippine
education, especially in the insufficiently funded public schools.
As a matter of fact, the Philippine government has consistently failed to comply with
the United Nations standard for the education budget, as a percentage of the gross
domestic product (GDP), to be pegged at 6 percent. (See Figure 2.)
Denmark) use their own language in their education systems, in contrast with the
Philippines (now at rank 117 among 166 countries, below Uzbekistan and just above
South Africa) that insists on using English as the primary medium of instruction
since 1906.
The same countries are among the destinations of overseas Filipino workers.
With regard to foreign investments, one wonders why, despite our much-touted
English comparative advantage over most of our Asian competitors, we lag far
behind when it comes to attracting foreign direct investments (FDI). Our FDI has
never breached 2 percent of GDP in the past decade.
8. Filipino is not yet intellectualized; it cannot be utilized as a medium of instruction
in college.
This is a myth borne out of ignorance and sheer laziness of anti-Filipino crusaders.
They only need to visit the Filipiniana Section of the National Library or any library
in the Philippines to see how far the Filipino language has achieved despite its
precarious existence as a second-class language in the minds of policymakers and
elite and middle-class citizens who claim English is their first language.
Countless journal articles, researches, theses and dissertations written in Filipino in
all fields of knowledge attest to the fact that Filipino is now an intellectualized
language.
Yes, it is yet to become fully intellectualized. We have plenty of materials written in
Filipino, but it can be fully intellectualized only if we continuously teach it as a
subject in higher education, while at the same time progressively using it as a
medium of instruction in a number of, if not all subjects. We got to start somewhere
the way our Malaysian and Indonesian cousins did a few decades ago.
Rethinking frameworks
Beyond additional education budget and tinkering with the subjects in the
curriculum, a reorientation of our education and economic systems is necessary.
Retaining Filipino in the tertiary level is just one step toward aligning our education
system with our goals as a nation. We can change the subjects as often but we
should emphasize inculcating values for national development and international
solidarity, rather than subscribing to dependency on failed foreign frameworks and
the race-to-the-bottom doctrine preached by global capital.
Hence, the countrys labor export policy must be scrapped, including the related
policy that treats schools in the Philippines as mere manufacturers of workers and
professionals for export.
To complement such endeavors, job opportunities within the country must be
broadened by implementing a comprehensive economic plan that focuses on selfreliance.
This can be done through industrialization, agrarian reform and modernization of
agriculture. Hence, the Philippines must utilize its resources for its own citizens
progress and not merely as exports to other countries.
The Philippines has the natural and human resources needed to become holistically
developed and a net contributor to the global struggle against inequality and
exploitation.