WHY THE PHILIPPINES IS SO POOR

Thu Aug 7 14:35:35 UTC 2008

Wednesday, August 6, 2008
WHY THE PHILIPPINES IS SO POOR

I wish to recall Rizal's "Indolence of the Filipino." In short, our
national hero attributed that phenomenon to the manner our former
colonizers -- with the combined sword and crucifix -- governed our
forefathers. The prevailing conditions in our country, in the way our
erstwhile leaders tried to govern us clearly indicate that we have not
yet become truly independent, for over half a century now,
notwithstanding repeated outpourings of enthusiasm every year since
July 4, 1946; which was changed to June 12 by then President Diosdado
Macapagal.  If our nation's leaders could only be guided by the
admonitions by Bro. Dr. Jose Rizal, particularly in the Seventh
Chapter of El Filibusterismo, especifically in the matter of language,
our nation could hope to be brought up from the cultual quagmire that
we are deeply enmeshed.

Our government's obstinacy in perpetuating the use of English in
public administration and in the educational system has kept our
society groveling in the quicksand of American contagion. Government
leaders are blinded by the Washington propaganda that English language
is the most desirable for us. It simply keeps us captive to the
IMF-World Bank policy of ensuring the unhampered supply of cheap
Filipino labor force to feed the needs of multinationals here and
abroad. In effect, the policy perpetuates the pathetic condition of
keeping the OFWs menial workers in the employ of other nations/races.
We ought to be mindful, and guided by, the exhortations by our
national hero -- Dr. Jose Rizal -- that "language is the thought of
the peoples".  History clearly shows that progressive countries
educate their young in their native language.

When the USA colonized our country through the so-called "benevolent
assimilation proclamation" by President McKinley and enforced the
teaching of English to children of school age -- with the attendant
prohibiition for us to speak our own languages -- it was in effect the
altruistic conquest of the Filipino mind.

The more intelligent were taken in as government's "state pensionados"
to pursue studies in the USA, and upon return to the home country,
became the implementors of the Washington policy of keeping the
Philippines an economic and cultural vasal of the USA. President
Quezon started to wiggle out from the quicksand of US cultural
contagion when he created the Institute of National Language, and
proclaimed August 13 - 19 yearly as National Language Week. He merely
floated a toy paper boat in the lake of Americanized culture.

President Ramon Magsaysay ordered the translation of Philippine
National Anthen into, Bayang Magiliw or "Lupang Hinirang"; and also
the military commands into Filipino. Moreover, he instituted the
practice of delivering in the native language his formal acceptance
speech whenever a new ambassador presented his credentials as the
envoy of his sovereign to the Philippines. But the "Guy" perished in a
mysterious plane crash on March 17, 1957; in what the US-AID
proclaimned as caused by metal fatigue!

When President Corazon Aquino certified to Congress the urgency of
creating the National Language Commission, and she also issued
Executive Order No. 335 ordering the use of Filipino in official
correspondence, she was hounded by a series of coup d'etat(s), and
there was a stern CIA warning that she would not last her term.
Significantly, a lady lawmaker from Cebu, possibly by means of
external proddings, demanded in her privilege speech that Tita Cory
withdrew her EO 335!

The National Language Commission was established, nevertheless, but it
was allotted only six-hundredths (0.06%) percent of the Dept. of
Education budget, which rendered it inutile! There came about perhaps
a secret understanding with the rank and file implementors of the
order. Tita Cory survived her term.

On July 15, 1997 President Fidel V. Ramos proclaimed August as
national language month every year (Proc. 1041), but it was like the
curse of Sisyphus -- pushing uphill the national language policy for
one month, and then letting it slide down back to the plains for
eleven months -- "for global competitiveness!" And so, our official
language policy has remained -- urung-sulong -- or back-and-forth!

But the most serious blow was when the CIA with the US marines,
abducted President Marcos (et. al) to Hawaii and detained him (them)
there until death. Marcos had issued an order -- a Memorandum to the
Minister of Education and Culture, and all other members of the
Cabinet, dated 17 January 1986 -- or just over a month before EDSA One
erupted -- "To create the conditions in your respective ministries and
other instrumentalities of the government for the optimal promotion
and development of Fiipino as a national language.

"Further the Minister of the Budget is directed to cooperate with the
University of the Philippines in realizing the endowment of a
Translation Center for the translation of major literary works into
Filipino..."

The memorandum was officially transmitted on 20 Janaury 1986 through a
covering memorandum by Presidential Executive Assistant Juan C.
Tuvera, to Minister Jaime C. Laya and others concerned. It is highly
suspected that the vital directive might, or not, have reached its
intended addressees, and/or probably intercepted by CIA surrogates in
the government bureaucracy.

To the Washington policy makers such audacity by a former Asian
spokesman who, 20 years earlier, held the joint session of the US
Congress spellbound when he delivered in excellent English, "An Asian
Message to America -- Trustee of Civilization," was an act of
sacrilege, a fatal error, if not a direct affront to the "IMF policy
of insuring that English should remain as the Philippine language of
administration and for instruction in the Filipino classrooms,"
according to Dean Apolinar B. Parale in his book, A Case for Filipino.

It is very necessary for Congress to enact a law declaring Visayan and
Ilocano as ALSO official languages of the country, and that after a
certain period of time English shall cease to be an official language,
and become, as other major languages of the world, an elective
language of study in the schools.

It would be also necessary for Filipino journalists and owners of the
local periodicals to rethink their language policy, if they still
value the meaning of patriotism, or love of Motherland. And this
writer hereby appeals to the good reader to kindly visit --
http://www.Petition Online.com/maBIni2 click this address, and just
follow the prompts to endorse the Petition pending in Congress for the
rationalization of our governments policy on language.

Even the owners/publishers of Philippine news and periodicals should
rethink their language policy. If they are not renegades to the
Motherland!

Irineo Perez Goce

http://laonlaan.blogspot.com/2008/08/why-philippines-is-so-poor.html

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