Forward with English!

Title

Creator

Fernandez, Joan

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XX (No. 10) October 1968

Year

1968

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

The disadvantages of Pilipino or Tagalog as the language for the nation or the schools of the entire country

Fulltext

■ A sensible article on the disadvantages of Pilipino or Tagalog as the language for the nation or the schools of the entire country. FORWARD WITH ENGLISH! Or, Why We Should Not “Return Our School System To The Educational Darkness of 1900.” English or Piljpino? Let me shout my answer from the tops of the Chocolate Hills of Bohol: “ENGLISH!” Not as our national lan guage, if that is against your concept of nationalism, but as the medium of instruction in our schools. We must use English because it is the most useful, the most practical and the most. adequate language in government, commerce, sciences and arts in our coun try and in the world today and . in the foreseeable cen turies ahead. We cannot use Pilipino be cause there is no such thing. There is only Tagalog. And Tagalog is far from adequate, as admitted by everyone, in cluding the Tagalogs them selves. Recently I went to some government offices in Manila to transact some official busi ness. I talked to the em ployees in English. They an swered in Tagalog. Then I answered back in the Pilipino I had picked up in the pro vinces. The employees shook their heads and reverted to English. I junked my Pili pino and used English again. It was only then that we un derstood each other perfectly. We should throw Pilipino into the waste can. It is use less. Tagalog has been in our schools for some 30 years now: first as the “National Language,” then as the “Fili pino National Language,” and lately as “Pilipino.” For that length of time it has nothing to show but dismal failure. Despite memos and directives to love, learn and speak it, nobody appreciates it, much less speaks it, in the non-Tagalog regions. If ever it is used in speech or con versation, it is only to relate 2 Panorama off-color jokes of local vin tage. The provincial board of Bohol and the governor of Cebu are looking for Visayan translations of the Philippine National Anthem. They want their people to sing the Hymn in Visayan instead of in Pili pino. That is how unpopular Pilipino is in our region. No body reads the Pilipino sec tions of magazines, Pilipino names of offices and school buildings, and Pilipino ver sions of certificates and diplo mas. They read the English. A Pilipino division super visor was assigned to some province. Bravely she began to “Tagalize” the teachers and pupils. The teachers and supervisors were required to talk in Tagalog in meetings and conferences. It was fun while it lasted. They were asked to earn units in Pili pino in evening and summer classes. (I think the right term is “buy,” for they never learned to speak the lan guage.) All these bore nega tive results. Now, the Pili pino division supervisor uses Visayan than Pilipino. Why? Because Pilipino is useless in Bohol, while Visa yan is used in the home, in church, at the market, in pro grams, in offices, everywhere in the community. From praying to love-making the Boholanos employ Visayan. And those who reached high school and college write their love letters in English. When the vernacular was made the medium of instruc tion in Grades I and II, it was a hit with the parents. They were glad to see their nine-year-olds literate readers in Visayan upon completing Grade II. In addition, the youngsters could also tackle numbers and some sentences in English. So for the sake of those who will drop out after Grade II, I am for continuance of the vernacular as medium of instruction in Grades I and II. English should be, as now, taught as a subject in the first two grades. Pili pino shoud be scrapped in all the grades. The time demot ed to it now in Grades I and II should be used for Eng lish. From Grade III up, English should be retained as medium of instruction. The time now devoted to Pilipino should be added to the time allotment for lan guage arts (English). October 1968 3 This is the idea of one who has been in the government teaching service for the last 44 years. I consider only what is good for the country; what is practical and useful to the people; what would in the end make of us Filipinos truly world citizens talking the world language — Eng lish. I am not identified with any vested interests whose arguments are self-serving — like the Tagalogs who are for Pilipino because they want to remain Pilipino supervi sors and lord it over the nonTagalogs. Or make money in the Pilipino textbook indus try. Do not believe that native patriotism argument to sup port the need for a national language. We revolted against Spain, fought the Am ericans ahd ferociously re sisted the Japanese with pure white-heat patriotism. There was no Pilipino then. A na tional language is not an in gredient of patriotism. And forget that yarn about one being unable to express one’s soul except in one’s own tongue, whatever that means. If there is sense in that claim then we Visayans can express our soul only in Visayan, the Tagalogs only in Tagalog, the Ilocanos only in Ilocano, the Ilongos only in Hiligaynon, etc. No Fili pino can express his own soul in Pilipino because there is no soul in Pilipino because there is no Pilipino yet; it has to be invented, develop ed and learned. The plain truth is that a people learn a language. After having sufficiently mas tered it, they, and that means their souls, too, express them selves in it. That’s what Rizal and his contemporary writers did in Spain. That’s what Garcia Villa, N.V.M. Gonzalez, Carlos P. Romulo (who is now reported to be pro-Pilipino) and a host of other Filipino writers in/Eng lish are doing in English. As a matter of fact, in this de bate over the language pro blem both the pro-English and the pro-Pilipino are ex pressing themselves in Eng lish. Nobody is using Pili pino to express his ideas and his soul in this debate be cause Pilipino is non-existent and therefore useless to the debaters. As for the constitutional provision that we develop a national language based on 4 Panorama one of the principal dialects, forget it. Or amend it. Let us not be blind followers. There are provisions in the Constitution that have been found to be unwise. Let us change them. One is this pro vision about developing a national language. Another is the limiting of the regular session of Congress to 100 days. Now our lawmakers do not accomplish their work during the regular session. Then the government spends tremendous sums of money for special sessions. Why not make the legislators work throughout the year like other public servants to earn their yearly stipends and avoid wasting money on very ex pensive special sessions? To make Pilipino the me dium of instruction in our schools would be to go back 68 years in our educational endeavor and return our school system to the educa tional darkness of 1900. So forward with English! We have it for 68 years now and it has become the lingua franca of our people of dif ferent islands and tongues. — By Joan Fernandez, Philip pine Free Press, October 19, 1968. WHY WHITE ELEPHANT The King of Siam used to present a white elephant to the courtiers whom he wished to ruin. As the white elephant was sacred, it could not be disposed of in any way, and the expense of keeping it usually proved sufficiently disastrous. Hence, our modem term white elephant — and who has not thought he had one at some time or other? October 1968 5

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