[EDLING:277] House bill revives language debates

[Francis M. Hult]

Sun Star

Sunday, August 22, 2004

House bill revives language debates

By Liberty A. Pinili & Rene H. Martel

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2004/08/22/house.bill.revives.language.deb
ates.html

CEBU CITY -- A bill in the Lower House to make Filipino the medium of
instruction in all schools will mean the death of the Visayan, Waray and other
Filipino languages, said a group calling for public opposition to the
proposal.

But University of the Philippines (UP) president Francisco Nemenzo said that
opposing the establishment of a national language would only be divisive.

"Language cannot be killed by legislation," he said.

An alliance calling itself the Save Our Languages Through Federalism
Foundation Inc. (Solfed) charged that House Bill 1563 will lead to
the "eventual extermination" of non-Tagalog languages.

Instead, one or two Philippine language electives should be taught in Tagalog
regions so that Tagalogs will learn "to tolerate and respect" their fellow
Filipinos and not treat them "as inferior races and provincianos."

Moves to promote Filipino at the expense of regional languages have always
been a sore point in Cebu.

2 languages

In the early 1990s, the Provincial Government fought for the use of Cebuano as
the medium of teaching and official communications in the province.

A Visayan version of the national anthem was also circulated.

House Bill 1563 was filed last week by Gabriela Rep. Liza Maza; Bayan Muna
Reps. Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño and Joel Virador; and Anakpawis Reps.
Crispin Beltran and Rafael Mariano.

All won seats in Congress through the party-list system.

They argued the national language is much easier for students to understand
and that English, or even Spanish or Arabic, can just be used as educational
aids.

But a Cebu City councilor is also reminding legislators that the Constitution
identifies both Filipino and English as the nation's official languages.

Councilor Edgardo Labella, chairman of the committee on laws, ordinances,
public accountability and good government, said party-list representatives
proposing House Bill 1563 should keep in mind that the Constitution has a
bilingual mandate.

Direct threat

Article 14, Section 7 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution states, "For
purposes of communication and instruction, the official language of the
Philippines are Filipino, and until otherwise provided by law, English."

Labella is not against the use of Filipino "to raise the bar of patriotic
consciousness among today's studentry" but believes it should not be made the
only medium of instruction.

Solfed, though acting separately, shared the sentiment.

"The (Filipino-only) bill is a direct threat to the existence of practically
all of our ethno linguistic peoples," Solfed said in a statement.

The group said Filipino is a Tagalog dialect, despite the "honey-coating" to
justify the imposition of one language on all Filipinos.

It disputed the notion that Filipinos need one national language and said that
many countries "with a keener sense of justice" have multiple official
languages recognizing their native peoples.

Solfed recommended instead that native languages be taught in school subjects
like history, literature, arts and humanities, while retaining English for
sciences.

Local math

Solfed presented its statement during the launching of the UP Cebu College
Cebuano Studies program on Friday.

In the launching, Professor Rhodora Bucoy of UP Cebu College said it would be
divisive to promote only Visayan.

To do so, said Nemenzo, would only create unnecessary opposition from non-
Visayan Filipinos.

Meanwhile, an engineer who teaches in a university in Bohol said he has been
teaching trigonometry and math in Visayan since 1998.

Jes Tirol said his students did not find it difficult to learn math theories
in old Visayan.

"Of course, pagsugod sa klase gitudloan sila sa mga Visayan words," he said.
(At the start of the class they were taught the Visayan words.)

He said students soon got used to the words and understood the theories
better.

English edge

Labella, for his part, suggested that instead of imposing Filipino as the sole
medium of instruction, the country could increase the young's proficiency in
our national language-without doing away with English.

In an executive order in February last year, President Arroyo directed the
Department of Education to use English as the medium of instruction.

Besides, common sense dictates that English should also be used in schools
because books, reference materials, and other "tools of learning" are written
in English, Labella said.

He added that in the age of information technology, English is the medium and
the country prides itself on a workforce that is familiar with the language,
an edge that he said we might lose.

"We are preferred by other countries (when hiring employees) because of our
familiarity with the language," the councilor added.