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<h2 class="gmail-tmt-sub-title">Once more, on Filipino languages</h2><div class="gmail-tmt-flex gmail-tmt-flex-row gmail-tmt-flex-min"><div class="gmail-tmt-col-6 gmail-tmt-col-min"><p class="gmail-tmt-author">By <span><a href="https://www.manilatimes.net/author/fr-ranhilio-callangay-aquino/">FR. RANHILIO CALLANGAN AQUINO</a></span></p></div><div class="gmail-tmt-col-6 gmail-tmt-col-min"><p class="entry-publish-meta">November 20, 2018</p></div></div><ul id="gmail-breadcrumb" class="gmail-breadcrumb"><li class="gmail-item-home"><a class="gmail-bread-link gmail-bread-home" href="https://www.manilatimes.net" title="home">home</a></li><li class="gmail-separator gmail-separator-home"> / </li><li class="gmail-item-cat"><a href="https://www.manilatimes.net/category/opinion/">Opinion</a></li><li class="gmail-separator"> / </li><li class="gmail-item-cat"><a href="https://www.manilatimes.net/category/opinion/columnists/">Op-Ed Columns</a></li><li class="gmail-separator"> / </li><li class="gmail-item-cat"><a href="https://www.manilatimes.net/category/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/">Opinion on Page One</a></li><li class="gmail-separator"> / </li><li class="gmail-item-current gmail-item-470583"><strong class="gmail-bread-current gmail-bread-470583" title="Once more, on Filipino languages">Once more, on Filipino languages</strong></li></ul><div class="gmail-tmt-social-share"><a class="gmail-tmt-social-link gmail-tmt-social-twitter gmail-twitter" href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Once%20more,%20on%20Filipino%20languages&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.manilatimes.net%2Fonce-more-on-filipino-languages%2F470583%2F&via=themanilatimes"><span class="gmail-dashicons gmail-dashicons-twitter"></span><span class="gmail-screen-text"></span></a></div><a href="https://s14255.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Fr.-Aquino-New-Foto.jpg"><img class="gmail-lazy gmail-size-full gmail-wp-image-432850 gmail-lazy-loaded" src="https://s14255.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Fr.-Aquino-New-Foto.jpg" alt="" width="120" height="147"></a>FR. RANHILIO CALLANGAN AQUINO<p>THE
Supreme Court did not excise so-called “Filipino” (a.k.a. Tagalog) from
the curriculum. No court has any business doing that. Courts do not
resolve curricular issues. What it did though was decide that the
petition to interdict the implementation of the K to 12 curriculum —
involving a college curriculum that no longer prescribed Filipino —
lacked legal warrant. The petition to enjoin having been dismissed, the
result, of course, is that the CHEd-ordained curriculum that does not
require Filipino stands.</p>
<p>My brilliant friend Antonio Contreras asks why we even
prescribed a “national language” in the fundamental law, and he is right
in raising the question. It was wrong, I maintain, to prescribe a
“national language” in our Constitution. A nation does not need one
national language to survive and to flourish as a nation. If anything at
all, it is the imposition of the ill-contrived that spawns violence and
triggers divisiveness. Since it was Manila that formulated policy,
Manila chose the language with which it was most familiar, decreeing it
to be the language of a people who have always had different languages.</p>
<p>In many ways, this anomalous and truly unjust situation has its roots
in the mistake of calling Ibanag, Pangasinan, Waray, Cebuano, etc.
“dialects,” implying of course that they are variants of one language.
Any decent source on languages will show that Ibanag, as most other
Philippine languages, belongs to the Austronesian family of languages.
It has its own rules of syntax; it has its own semantic complications
and it has pragmatics all its own. Our policymakers ignored all this.
Gave Tagalog the habiliments of, first Pilipino, and later Filipino, and
canonized it as the language of an entire nation.</p>
<p>It worked — in the sense that the media deluged the towns, cities and
barangays with Tagalog programs. The national government did its share
in this assault on indigenous languages: It decreed that Tagalog would
be the medium of instruction in the rather ridiculous belief that once
Tagalog was known by all, it would make students understand lessons more
easily and teaching more effective. But Tagalog had to be learned in
non-Tagalog regions, while the facility with which our pupils and
students spoke, read, wrote and discussed in English steadily and
cumulatively declined. Just as the rest of the world was rushing to
learn English, we were running in the opposite direction — foreswearing
it, in the name of some moronic version of nationalism that equates
being a nation with speaking one language.</p>
<p>Are we better off for all this hoopla over Tagalog? Res ipsa
loquitur. Our world standing, academically, remains mediocre, and a
growing number of graduates cannot find jobs because the English they
speak and write is labored and laborious — and that, most certainly, is
not good enough for regional and global business. So much literature is
in English — so much information in the sciences and in various other
disciplines. What were the proponents of this mad proposition even
thinking: That this formidable intellectual corpus would be translated
into Tagalog and, in consequence, better understood by Ilocano, Ibanag,
Cebuano, Waray, Chabacano, Tausug students?</p>
<p>So, Tagalog is no longer required in college. Good. Then let us get
on with the task of undoing an ambivalent language policy in higher
education that has really proved to be our undoing! Let us, like Asean,
make the firm decision that we shall do business — teach, read, study,
write and discuss — in English. It need not be the King’s English. The
datu’s will do, provided that it is English that is grammatically sound
for grammar is not, after all, some nicety with which one can dispense.
It is the guarantee of intelligibility.</p>
<p>With educational policy finally regaining its sensible bearings, the
other, equally original, equally indigenous, equally worthy Philippine
languages can thrive and flourish. There is no reason that they should
perish. There is no reason that this cultural invasion of Tagalog into
every barangay and purok should define our future national life. We are a
country of a myriad islands and we are a nation of distinct ethnicities
and languages as distinct. That fact will not divide us. Stupidity
will!</p>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>