Learning and Speaking FILIPINO (A Book Review).....Why A National Language?

”Ang hindi nagmamahal sa sariling wika ay masahol pa sa malansang isda" - Dr. Jose Rizal

"Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent” – Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

“Nations, whose NATIONALISM is destroyed, are subject to ruin.” - Colonel Muhammar Qaddafi, 1942-, Libyan Political and Military Leader)

WHAT WE FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW: (Note: Bold,underlined words are HTML links. Click on them to see the linked postings/articles. Forwarding the postings to relatives and friends, especially in the homeland, is greatly appreciated).

“To be poor and independent is very nearly an impossibility.” - William Corbett, 1830

I just got hold of the newly published book "LEARNING AND SPEAKING FILIPINO" by Renato Perdon, who was a former researcher and chief translator at the National Historical Institute (NHI -Philippines) and author of several books on the Filipino language, i.e. dictionary, phrases, conversational, etc., for adults and the young; and of the interesting book Brown Americans of Asia.

In his Introduction to this new book, Perdon starts off with mention of the debate in our homeland on the use of Filipino versus a foreign language (English) as the medium of instruction, Perdon wrote that "we are not taking any side in the debate." Frankly, I am somewhat disappointed by his not taking side in the debate. He spoke of the raison d' etre for the book, i.e. the desire to help the Filipino diaspora (thanks to the failure of the country's rulers to generate decent jobs for the educated/schooled) --composed mainly by the Overseas Foreign Workers (OFW/OCWs) and permanent emigrants-- maintain and improve their own and their children's proficiency in our national language.

I attempt here to comment on Perdon's book with a different spin, that is, neither about its contents nor presentation since I do not have any qualification to do so from the standpoint of someone whose specialty is linguistics. Instead, I want to look at how the publication of such a book can contribute to our love for the homeland, to fostering Filipino nationalism. Thus, you may find my review as more generic rather than specific to this book.

Why the need for a national language, why learn one? To the truly informed or well-traveled person, language is a badge of nationality. Anyone who speaks his particular native tongue, i.e. French, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, etc, --of course a number of exceptions can come to mind-- can almost surely be said or identified to be a Frenchman, Japanese, Italian, Arab, etc. The ideal model of the nation, as derived from Western Europe, rested in considerable part upon the belief that each nation is a separate linguistic identity. And any citizen with national pride knows that national prestige demands that his national language take priority.

Nowadays (Y2008), even in the supposedly "globalized" world, governments of EU nations and/or opinion makers in the USA are demanding, with various reasons, the imposition of their own national language as a requirement for immigration/residency and citizenship.

Historically speaking, it was one of the aims of the French Revolution to impose a central national language on all the people of France. Since that time, wherever a diversity of languages was involved, the national language issue became a major concern to every nation that steps out to claim its place in the sun. Fast forward post-WW2 with the concomitant advent of nationalist demands for national independence and sovereignty by former colonies, issues arose as to the place of the superimposed alien language; which often continuous to be the lingua franca and the language of the dominant elite.

Despite the two generations since we Filipinos were "independent," this issue of superimposed language is still so true in our homeland. We Filipinos, especially among our educated elite, would prefer to retain the alien (English) language. I say that it smells of the stink of a "damaged culture" quite unique to us Filipinos. We have become so awed (more aptly, fucked up) by white foreigners, i.e. Americans in our case, that we even prefer English in our own homeland as the medium: of instruction in our private and public schools; in government and business; practically in all our institutions. My main dissent is in the absolute imposition of English on our educational system and other institutions (I agree in its use in the physical sciences or high technology courses where we have a dearth in terminology).

For us Filipinos, it is long overdue and only proper that education on a mass scale be conducted in the language of the people concerned. Our so-called educated during the early 20th century till today seem to have worked and still continue to work against the attainment of mass education for our less fortunate fellow countrymen and consequently against the disappearance of the illiterate Filipino.

We educated Filipinos seem unable to appreciate what an Indian government commission decades ago (1955) stated about Indian society then and its use of English (we can easily substitute ourselves in lieu of the Indians): "Use of English as such divides our people into two nations, the few who govern and the many who are governed, the one unable to talk the language of the other and mutually uncomprehending. This is a negation of democracy."

With the westernized orientation in our homeland, the concerned and thinking Filipino knows or learns that the successful assertion of the claim to nationhood established the presumption of a distinct national language (which admittedly in turn --due to its national usage-- may tend to absorb and/or downgrade his local vernaculars or dialects).

Regardless, we know that language is the primary instrument of social communication. Those who speak the same language have a strong common bond, have common memories and easier interaction. Critical to that common bond and easier interaction is the role of that unifying and singular language. The ability to converse, interact, trade, and communicate in a common language is key to quickly assimilating into the nation's unique fabric and becoming active participants in—and valuable contributors to—society.

On the other hand, those who have linguistic diversity require their mass media, schools, other institutions, etc. to employ the various languages and/or dialects and thus make it far more difficult: to create such a common bond, to obtain the same influences on all the people. Thus, linguistic diversity leads to separatism; it is an impediment to national unity, to nationalism. And that is, in our instance, to Filipinism

In addition, the presence of foreign schools and the foreigners ability to use their own language as medium in these schools further lend to our national language problem. These have been going on for decades, I hope I am wrong today. Anyway, I just checked the website of the International School (formerly the American School) where its syllabus showed our Filipino language as an elective, mind you, in our own homeland! Why do our traitorous rulers allow such?

To further highlight the discussion on national language closer to home, let us remind ourselves of an historical piece on President Quezon and national language, (Perdon gave an overview on the topic in his book). Obviously during the early years of the Philippine Commonwealth period, Mr. Quezon saw the development of a national language as essential in order to provide the unifying influence for us native Malay Filipinos (versus the divisive influence exercised at the time by our alien rulers, i.e.Spanish and Americans for their own interests). Mr. Quezon was open to any of our vernaculars or dialects to be our national language, but of course, for several reasons I will not repeat, it is the Filipino aka Pilipino (practically synonymous to Tagalog) which became formally our national language (<-- click to see reasons). It is sad, unfortunate and enraging that what Mr. Quezon spoke about almost three generations ago still rings very true today. Among the different peoples or countries in the world, we Malay Filipinos who comprise the majority in our homeland still have the same tribal and colonial hangups and mentality; demonstrated by our endless debate of whether to use our own national language or a foreign one within our territory, i.e. English; of refusing to recognize an historically used dialect/language by the majority; of allowing petty provincialism and/or regionalism to militate against a national language; of therefore perpetuating illiteracy and therefore ignorance among the native majority; of therefore making ourselves --us Filipinos in the homeland and abroad-- to self-destruct as a people and prevent us to be a united people, to be a true nation.

These attitudes and behaviors of not desiring/wanting our own national language in our own homeland are carried over by our fellow countrymen who emigrated to other countries, i.e. Australia, United States, Canada, etc. I think and believe such negation of our national language is the product of several unappreciated factors and realities, such as: geographical remoteness brought about by our islands, local dialects, historical tribalism untouched, and feudal society unchanged and colonial rule which reinforced the same.

Our resultant divisiveness has been much exploited by our foreign masters then and foreign businessmen now (who we should realize and remind ourselves are in our homeland for their own foreign, national interests - "benevolent assimilation" was pure BS and altruism does not come with whatever one wants to call it: capitalism, imperialism or neocolonialism/neoimperialism aka economic/cultural globalism [globalization], then and now).

Since we Filipinos were already divided as primitive tribes and traditional societies (at best) prior to and after alien occupation, neither the Spaniards nor the Americans did anything to unify us to become a sovereign nation/people, but simply maintained, used and reinforced our divided status quo. What these imperialists did is understandable, conquerors and victors win and rule through "divide and conquer." Our forefathers saw the Spaniards as conquerors and therefore enemies (so did our fathers the Japanese during WW2) and they fought these foreigners with strong determination.

At the turn of the 20th century, when the Spaniards ceded us to the Americans, many of our forefathers also realized (though belatedly due to naive ignorance of world events) the latter as conquerors; but the Americans with military efficiency killed hundreds of thousands of them and deported/exiled those they did not.

With the more subtle American way of colonization - mainly via public education, it successfully molded the Filipino mind to be Americanized (using English as medium of instructions that overtly and covertly incorporated American culture and value system, in turn its imposition ensured by the American martial law or military rule then).

Within a generation, our Americanization was completed and effectively made us natives forget the brutality committed by the American forces during the Philippine-American War and the anti-Filipino nationalism decreed by American military rulers for almost three decades. Within a generation, the strong anti-Americanism borne out of this Philippine-American War almost completely disappeared. Ever since, the overall result in our homeland indicates that American cultural, economic, and military influence and dominance have been attained; and have been perpetuated in the past 100+ years (till the present, now via so-called globalization).

In addition, our Americanization cloned many of us into "Little Brown Brothers" or "Brown Americans" (Perdon's), to become instant apologists for America and loud critics of Filipino nationalists in our own homeland (much more vehement and worse than the WASP themselves). As Americanized "creatures," we demonstrated and still demonstrate the unquestioning loyalty of colonized Filipino minds; combined with the feeling and showing of endless gratitude "utang na loob" and mendicant subservience. All the miseducation/Americanization of the Filipino heart and mind contributed to the so-called damaged culture with the characteristic but usually unrecognized "colonial mentality" within our hearts and minds.

Going back to Perdon's mission, I say that, having lived and worked abroad for 30 years, I am not as optimistic as Perdon about the desire of Filipino expats and their descendants to want to learn and speak Filipino since the immediate need to know the local language of their destination employer-country is paramount; and its local media a strong impediment. At the same time, our OFWs may not be able to afford the time to learn nor have the opportunity to speak our national language. Such considerations are difficult impediments to learning. (On the other hand, I believe the book will be selected more by foreigners interested in our homeland for reasons of either business or leisure.)

Even in countries where Filipino immigrants can afford to study and learn to speak (and read) our Filipino language, it is extremely rare to see them impart their native language to their descendants since by default their new milieu forces them to lose or forget their national language due to lack of usage -that's the reality. I have seen that this is the case for permanent emigrants and their children in the USA. (in my own family, our two children learned to speak and understand the Filipino language mainly by spending their grade and high school summer vacations -every other year- with their cousins in the homeland, which really helped a lot).

It is only when Filipino nationalism is present in the heart and mind of the OFW or permanent emigrant will his national pride --demonstrated by his love for homeland and his usage of national language among his fellow countrymen and their offsprings-- will he be enthused to provide the occasions for learning and speaking Filipino, aside from his own dialect, as the case may be. It takes an inner drive to actively promote the learning and speaking of one's dialect, and much more so -nationalism- of one's national language IN a foreign land.

On deeper thought however, Renato Perdon already serves the Filipino nationalist cause by the mere act of publishing his book "Learning and Speaking Filipino." By presenting a venue for maintaining and/or learning our national language, Perdon helps foster our common bond as native Filipinos; and hopefully the adage "distance makes the heart grow fonder" for our homeland and people will come to fruition; and which in the long-run could help us native Filipinos towards Filipino unity abroad; towards national unity and national sovereignty in our Philippine homeland. I hope for and wish Perdon success in his endeavor.

Contacts for getting copies of the book:

The Manila Prints, P. O. Box 1267, Darlinghurst NSW 2010 Australia. Phone, +61 2 9313 8179

The Manila Prints, 42 Hernandez Street, Chrysanthemum Village, San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines, +63 2 8682212

“The true Filipino is a decolonized Filipino.” – Prof. Renato Constantino (1919-1999)

"There is no literate population in the world that is poor; there is no illiterate population that is anything but poor.” – John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006)