elisesninja:

ellobofilipino:

iwriteasiwrite:

mokidoki:

Scap! :)

Reblogging to share the incisiveness!

Anyway, amid all the myriad angry reactions I hope people actually step back and take a moment to consider why we have so entwined our understanding of Filipino nationalism with Tagalog. Seems to me to be a bit simplistic. Patriotism, and nationalism, cannot just rest on the use, or lack of use, of a language.

Is the message really the method? Is the language as important, if not more so, that the sentiments being conveyed? Compare the deep, rich Filipino-ness that is found in the works of Nick Joaquin or F. Sionil Jose. How about the fact that the greatest historian in the Philippines (Father John Schumacher), is a Filipino by choice, not by birth. He’s tall, he’s white, he writes in English. At no point should be limit the meaning of Filipino to a singular language; that also overlooks the sheer diversity of language found in the Philippines; and even our own history. The Reformists and Revolutionaries of the 19th century found it reasonable to use Spanish, even during the war. It helped them cut across linguistic barriers, and provided a regionally neutral mode of communication. What is the point of replacing English with Tagalog?

As opposed to trying to simplify, especially in this day and age, our modes of communication; we should be taking lessons from our multi-lingual past and work to rationalize our education system to encompass that diversity. Educate in the various languages, rooted in regional mother tongues, layered with national and international languages; else we risk destroying one of the key cultural elements that makes the Philippines so remarkable.

There is something almost humorous whenever I hear someone argue that Tagalog is the Philippines mother tongue. Really? So what of Chabacano? Or Cebuano? What about the fact that our historical documents are primarily in Spanish? And almost all translations are in English. We are not an easy nation to grasp, but we are a rich one. And we have to move away from the Western linguistic framework where one language rules them all. It doesn’t work for us, and it never will. We should have multiple languages working along side one another; language in this country should never be an either or proposition.

So it seems that this article has created a storm in a teapot.

It’s funny though that the people so hurt by it are mostly people in the Capital. And writing my reply now from the City of Golden Friendship, where Cebuano is the lingua franca, English being the language in the schools and offices, and Tagalog only used in Filipino classes, I am writing my reaction as a Mindanaoan.

We never really liked having Tagalog classes from elementary to college (yes, we had Filipino subjects in college). Why? Because it was nothing but a literal translation of classes offered in the English language. If English had classes in grammar, literature, public speaking and technical writing, Filipino also had the same with the technical aspects nothing but mere translations of those taught in English.

What usually made matters worse was that our classes in Tagalog were offered by teachers who were native Cebuano-speakers, which means that if they reach that fork in a road of teaching Tagalog, they use Cebuano or English to point the class in the right direction.

While nationalists in the Capital like to wrap themselves in the flag by speaking Tagalog during the “Buwan ng Wika,” nationalists in other parts of the country do not actually speak to the people in Tagalog if they do not wished to be seen as agents of Imperial Manila.

Just a few weeks ago, when Senator Koko Pimentel took his oath in Mati, Davao Oriental, he spoke to the people in Cebuano, garnering negative reactions from people in the Capital who were waiting for his stands on issues which were deemed important by those in Manila.

But unlike the people in the Capital, we who are from the Land of Promise, praised the Senator for speaking in the language of the masses in Davao and most of the areas in Visayas and Mindanao. And instead of speaking on issues considered essential by the people of the Capital, he promised a “Mindanao First” term, in the language best understood by the people of Mindanao - Cebuano.

Was the Senator less a Filipino because he did not speak in Tagalog?

Unbeknownst to most of the people in the Capital, the language of nationalism in areas outside Manila are the local languages. Activists, politicians, writers and journalists in these areas use Cebuano, Ilocano, Bicol, Hiligaynon, Waray, Chavacano and other Filipino languages.

Try speaking about the nationalism in Cebu using Tagalog and I guarantee you, you will get a cold shoulder. Worse, you will be chased off the island of Sugbo. In Mindanao, you will be viewed as a neocolonial imperialist, imposing your own language and ways on a people with a different lingual and cultural origin.

English, for us beyond the Capital, provides what @iwriteasiwrite correctly put: a regionally neutral mode of communication. And honestly, it has instilled in me a more profound and heightened sense of nationalism than Tagalog. I learned to appreciate my heritage and identity more from the words and works of Fr. John Schumacher SJ, Claro M. Recto, SP Lopez, Raul Manglapus, Jovito Salonga and Ninoy Aquino - all of which were written in English.

To me, this whole article is oozing sarcasm, and it seems that the very purpose of this is to provoke angry reactions. 

Bigla nga naman nating naalala ang sarili nating wika, kung anuman ‘yon. Bigla nga naman nating naalala na Plipino tayo - kung anuman ang pagiging Pilipino.

On a personal note, I do not demean [Tagalog] as merely the language of the streets nor do I think of English as the language of the learned. Kung paano ako kausapin, ganoon din ako sasagot. Also, code-switching is an inevitable fact for postcolonial countries like the Philippines. 

Again, to me, this whole article is oozing with sarcasm, and it seems that the very purpose of this is to provoke angry reactions, if not to make us think about how our own educational institutions view our own language.

Ang pinakamagandang insight na nakita ko about language ay nakita ko sa University of Assumption sa Pampanga. Di ko maalala exactly pero it goes something like this: “Magkapampangan sa bahay. Magtagalog sa eskwelahan. Mag-Inggles sa mundo.”

I believe, this is the best way to celebrate our own regional languages, unifying the national consciousness through a single language, and flaunting our genius to the world.