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THE CALL OF THE MARGINS, THE CRISIS OF THE CENTER By Aurelio Solver Agcaoili U of Hawaii at Manoa Presented at the 8th Nakem International Conference on ‘The Center from the Margins,’ U of Hawaii at Manoa, Nov 14-16, 2013 “The Call of the Margins, The Crisis of the Center” The argument of my presentation is simple: that in a state such as the Philippines, a state marked by multiplicity, there is no place for the fascistic notion of a nation-state built upon the 19th century notion of state and the search for a proverbial ‘national language’ at the expense of other languages of the multi-nation state. Let me be clear with my concepts: Multiplicity is meant the quality of being various, many, manifold, or multiple. Fascism’s many components is ‘the belief of the supremacy of one language, or one ethnic group’ over other languages or ethnic groups in a political body, or state. ‘National language’ is the language imposed upon a people by law, by instruments of the law, and by the cultural and educational institutions and apparatuses of the state that believes in that fascistic component of the supremacy of one language. The issue of multiplicity in the Philippines, as well as in the United States, and many other countries for that matter is a fact. There is not only a single Philippines, with just in the center. There is, at the very least, per Ethnologue data (retrieved August 15, 2013), we have 185 languages in the Philippines, with 4 already extinct (based on estimate of Wurm 2007), Crystal 2003, Lobel 2004, 2005, 2012). This leaves us with 181 living languages but with this situation per Ethnologue: 43 are institutional, 70 developing, 45 vigorous, 13 in trouble, 10 dying. We are not going to look too far for the reasons of this terrible situation of the Philippine languages: except for Tagalog (also known as P/Filipino, and English), there has never been public appreciation, valuing, respect, and recogntion of the importance of these community languages by the government. This attitude is the same attitude of all countries that are obsessed with coming up with its own ‘national’ language as a symbol of its being a nation. We forget that nationhood is not in the language, but in the collective commitment of people to bind themselves and for a union, and from that union, presumably a state would be created, with the state making it sure that the good of everyone, what we call in Latin as summun bonum, is protected and assured. The summum bonum—the highest good or the common good—is the primus motor of the building of a society. Why build a society when the rights of everyone, when the good of everyone, is not protected? One might as well live in the mountains, or in the wildness and do a Henry David Thoreau and create our own Walden Pond. I will argue that the evolution of the national language is a bad concept, a bad ideology, and an anti-people provision of human rights, and if by human rights here we mean the rights of people to their sense of the good life, to their person, their property, and their sense of freedom. The 19th century ideal of a ‘nation’—an ideal borrowed from the Italian, Spanish, German, English, and French sources—is a phantasmagoric dream and a case of that which is surreal. What happens with this borrowing of templates—of the wrong models of nation-building—is a repeat of the same horrific acts of these countries, acts that are tantamount to the suppression of the basic rights of peoples to their languages. Let us take France, one of the countries that would fight to death the maintenance of French as its official language. It has this situation: it has 25 languages, 2 of these already extinct. Of the 23 living languages: 5 are institutional, 11 developing, 3, vigorous, 2 in trouble, and 2 dying. Considering that France is the country of ‘egalite, franternite, and liberte’, I wonder where the contradictions lay—if at all there is—in officializing only one, and with the rest remaining in the margins or in the periphery? Let us see Spain: 15 languages in total, all are living. The situation is bad as well, with 4 in trouble of becoming extinct. Of these 15 too, 5 are institutional, 2, developing, and 4 vigorous. Given the above argument, and limiting the discussion to the Philippines in the hope of expanding the argument in countries that are also linguistically diverse, we have a problem in the ‘nationalization’ or ‘officialization’ of one and only one language from within, and one and only one language from the outside. When we push this situation further, we end up with the absurd, such as educational practice that penalizes students for every word of their own community language that they speak, or at worst, having them expelled as in the case of the three students heard speaking Ilokano in a sectarian school that has adopted an English-only policy. The intention in these practices, of course, is noble, with the provision of mechanism for students to get to speak either Tagalog, or English, or both—so that they will be able to demonstrate their national, and so that they would become the literate group of English-speaking elite in the Philippines. There is however, a principle in ethics that talks about the integral good, and saying that ‘bonum ex integra causa malum ex cucumque defectu: or, for a good to be good, it must be entirely good, and that any defect it has vitiates its goodness. We look at this whole exercise in the Philippines—an exerce that has been going on for the longest time—for three generations, or 78 years since 1935, or 76 since 1937. These dates are crucial for our argument. Let us look at the very ideology of state education, and we see here the bundle of contradictions in the Philippines: we are not fully accounting our languages in the Philippines, and that the only myopic way we look at our language is to make them instrument of a presumed, even fantasized, national communication and conversation. We forget, of course, that prior to the evolving of Filipinas, our own diverse people have been conversing with each other because we know how to deal with each other, and because we spoke the language of each other, or the other. Today, we have forgotten the very tenet of good community relationship by insisting on the singularity of a national language and aided by the use of a language of international communication. The whole thing, really, is bad governance. When you deprive the students and communities of their own language—and therefore their own culture, you are pushing them to extinction. And if we care about birds going extinct, or tarsius monkey becoming memory, there is that clear paradox why we cannot seem to be alarmed by the extinction of one of our own languages. We have succeeded in making extinct 4 of our languages and 10 are already dying. When we factor in the fact that it takes a thousand of years, at the very least to evolve a language, our situation is truly alarming. But when we look into the real nature of language—as the carrier of our being, as abode of the human soul, as depository of human knowledge that took hundred of years of crystallization—we are all in the wrong. Thus, our notion of the center—with the national language as the pivot of national conversation is utterly poor, impoverished, and unfair. The languages pushed to the margins must now begin to account its own possibilities and declare once and for all that languages—all of our languages—are our social resource. The rainbow is beautiful because it has those colors and hues that are diverse and manifold. This is the way we should look at the Philippines. This is the way we should look at the languages of the world.

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At ang tao ay wika, at ang wika ay tao Gantimpalawang Collantes 2008 [Nota bene: Daytoy a salaysay ket nangabak iti maika-2 a puesto iti 2008 Gantimpalang Collantes, segun iti pakaammo ti Komision ti Nailian a Pagsasao. Maited ti premio inton Agosto 29, 2008]

AT ANG TAO AY WIKA, AT ANG WIKA AY TAO Et verbum caro factum est. At ang wika ay nagsakatawang tao. Ket ti tao nagbalin a sao. – Santa Biblia 0. Henesis ng Pagninilay-nilay Kailangan ng pagtatakda: na ang tao ay wika at ang wika ay tao. Ang asersyon sa kahalagahan ng wika ay hindi lamang pagkilala sa realidad kundi pag-amin sa ontikong relasyon ng tao sa kanyang wika, isang relasyong magkatanikala, di kailan man magkahiwalay, di makapaghihiwalay: walang taong walang wika, at walang wikang walang tao. Walang conditio sine qua non ng ganitong pagtatakda, walang nasa gitna, walang paguurong-sulong sa utak. Kung gayon, ceteris paribus, wika ang tao, at tao ang wika. Sa duluhan ng mga pagbabaka-baka, sa duluhan ng mga pag-aatubili, sa bawat kanto at panulukan ng mga pagbabaka-bakasali sa relasyon ng tao sa kanyang wika, at ng wika sa tao, isang bagay ang malinaw: na ang tao, sa kanyang pagiging historikal na nilalang, sa kanyang pagiging bahagi ng isang takdang panahon at pook, ay, tulad ng Verbum—na siya ring ‘Logos’, na siya ring ‘Salita’, na siya ring ‘Sao’– ‘nagsakawatang tao’. At ang wikang nagsakatawang tao ay pumagitna sa kasaysayang pantao. At sa pagpapamagitan ng wika sa kasaysayang pantao ay nagsilbi ito—at patuloy na nagsisilbi—bilang saksi sa pagbubukadkad ng mga partikular na kasaysayan sa kani-kanilang kahulugan at katotohanan. Dahil dito, mahalaga ang wika—mahalaga lahat ng mga wika—at ang kahalagahang iyan ng mga wika ay nakaugat sa pangyayari na ang mga wika ay bahagi ng buod at ubod ng identidad. Kung gayon, mahalaga ang mga wika sapagkat kung wala ang mga wika—kung walang ‘magsasakatawang tao’ sa ating pagbatid sa mundo—hindi posible ang kabatiran sa ano mang anyo nito: kabatiran sa sarili, kabatiran sa iba, kabatiran sa mundo, at higit sa lahat, kabatiran sa kabatiran. Mahalaga ring linawin na ang kabatiran sa kabatiran—at ang reflexibong kapangyarihang taglay ng wikang pantao—ay ‘palagian-nang’ pinapamagitanan ng wika. Wala nang iba pang pinakamainama natagapamagitan sa kabila ng kanyang taglay na likas na kalabuan. Bahagi ng kanyang ironiya ay ang kakayahan din nitong gawin malinaw ang napagtanto nitong malabo. Mahalaga ang wika, kung gayon, sapagkat, ito ang balay ng kaluluwa ng tao, ang balay ng pamayanan pangkultura. Ipagkakait ang balay ng kaluluwa sa tao, ang tao ay magpakalabuylaboy, magiging bagamundo. Ipagkakait ang balay ng pamayanan, ang buong pamayanan ay madidiskaril, mawawala, magwawala, mangangawala. Pero madaling sabihin ang mga ito; kayhirap hanapan ng puwang sa disorientadong buhay ng tao. Mas madaling mawala, magwala, mangawala. 1. Mga Masalimuot sa Usapin sa Paglusaw sa Kahalagahan ng Wika Hindi ganito kalinaw ang relasyong ng wika sa tao, at ng tao sa wika. Sa kasamaang palad, mangilan-ngilan lamang ng mga wika ang may pribilehiyo sa pagpapahalaga, pagpapaunlad, at pagpapayabong. Mangilan-ngilan ay may prestihiyo a sanhi ng posisyon sa intelektual, akademik, a kultural na buhay ng higit na malaking komunidad. Ilan sa mga ito ang internasyunal na wika ng komersyo at diplomasya. Ilan din dito, sa kasalukuyan, ang tila fetisyistikong pagbibigay ng pagpapahalaga sa mga wikang pambansa sa ngalan ng sentristang idea ng ‘nasyon’ at ‘nasyonalismo’, at sa ngalan ng politikal na agenda sa ‘pambansang kaisahan’, ‘pambansang pag-unlad’, pambansang simbolo’, ‘pambansang diwa’, at ‘pambansang pagkakakilanlan’. Nangangailangan, kung gayon, ng ibayong pagsusuri sa mga pangyayari na nagdudulot ng paglusaw sa ganitong di matatawaran at mahigpit na ugnayan ng tao at ng kanyang wika. May mga pangyayari mismo sa kasaysayan pantao na nagsilbing motor ng paglabo sa ating kabatiran sa mga wika—at paglusaw sa katotohanang di maaring talikdan ng tao ang kanyang wika. Ang ilan sa mga salik ng paglusaw na ito ay: (a) ang pagpapakalat ng kaisipan siyentismo at rasionalismo; (b) ang pagbubuo ng nasyon-estado, at lahat ng mga kaakibat na kaasipan at praktika kaugnay nito; (c) ang pagwawasiwas ng kapangyarihan ng kapitalismo, nasa estado man ang kapital o nasa kamay ng mga mangangalakal; at (d) ang walang riyendang pagsupil ng globalisasyon sa mga karapatang pangkultura, kung kaya ay karapatang pangkamalayan, ng mga indihenoso at etnokultural na mga grupo sa iba’t ibang panig ng mundo. Ang resulta ng mga salik na ito ay ang pagbabandila nga iilang lengguahe, ang pagdadakila sa mga makapangyarihang wika sapagkat instrumento ng mga ito ng imperio kakabit nila, at ang pagbibigay ng armada at puersang pandagat sa mga pambansang wika na, sa kasaysayan, ay naging sanhi rin sa pagsupil sa mga karapatang pantao—mga karapatang pangwika at pangkultura—na pinuprotektahan ng saligang batas ng maraming nasyon-estado at ng mga internasyunal na tratado at tipan. 2. Siyentismo at Rasyunalismo Bilang Panlusaw sa Salik Ang pamana ng medyibal na kaisipan na nagsimula sa masalimuot na usapin kung ano ang ‘siensiya’ at kung ano ang ‘siyentifiko’ ay dulot ng mapanagumapay na aktitud pangkaisipan at pangkamalayan sa ‘rason’ na nagbunsod sa isang pilosopikal na posisyon na maari nating tawagin na ‘rasyunalismo’. Ang aktitud na ito ay reaksyon sa pangingibabaw ng ‘fide’—ng pananampalataya—bilang balangkas ng pang-unawa sa tao, sa kanyang lipunan, sa kanyang mundo at higit sa lahat, sa kanyang relasyon sa kanyang Manlilikha. Malaking bahagi ng ganitong intelektuwal—at sa huli ay politikal, na posisyon (a) sa pananagumpay ng Kristiyanismo mula sa persekusyon at opresyon pinagdaanan nito sa naunang yugto ng kasaysayan sa kanluran, (b) sa pagkakaroon ng absolutistang kapangyarihang taglay ng simbahang Katoliko, ng Santo Papa, at nga mga ‘hari’ at ‘prinsipe’ ng naturang simbahan— kapangyarihang nagtatakda kung ano ang tama at mali, kung ano ang naaayon sa ‘turo’ ng pananampalataya, at (c) sa kung ano ang matatanggap na ‘rasyunal’ na kabatiran, isang kabatirang binalangkas mula sa liwanag ng pananampalataya, at ng ‘grasyang banal’ na kakabit nito. Sa kasaysayan ng mga idea sa kanluran, punum-puno ang ganitong episodo: nga mga dramang sosyal na ang mga aktor ay ang mga nagtataguyod ng absolutistang kapangyarihan at mga segunda klaseng aktor na ang tanging kapangyarihan ay ang kapangyarihan ng bagong kabatiran na nabubuksan sa pamamagitan ng kanilang ibang pagbalangkas kung ano ang ‘siensiya’ at kung ano ang ‘rasyunal’ na instrumento nito. Ang episodo ng pagsupil sa rebolusyong pangsiensiya—at kung gayong, pangkosmolohia din sapagkat binalewala ang naunang balangkas ng kaalamang pangmundo—na sinimulan ni Copernicus at itinuloy ni Galileo—ay isang malinaw na halimbawa ng ganito: kapag hindi angkop ang ‘bagong’ kabatiran sa hulmahan ng unibersal, dogmatiko, at dogmatisadong kaalaman, hindi ito siyentifiko dahil hindi rasyunal, at hindi rasyunal dahil hindi siyentifiko. Ang isomorfismong pag-iisip na ganito—na tautolohikal din—ang nanaig sa mahabang panahon hanggang sa manaig ang ibang uri ng siyentismo at rasyunalismo sa labas ng hulmahang fideismo, ng hulmahan ng pananampalataya. Masasabi na sa haba ng panahon ng ganitong mapagbansot at nambabansot na pagbabalangkas sa kaalamang pantao—umiral ang kakaibang paglaganap din ng wika ng imperio, na siya ring wika ng Simbahang Katoliko, ang wikang Latin. Mapapansin na kakambal ng mga kaalamang pangkanluran at kapangyarihang taglay ng siyentismo at rasyunalismo atfideismo ng Simbahang Katoliko ang wikang nakapangyayari sapagkat makapangyarihan: ang Latin. Sa ganitong pagtataya, makikita na ang partikular na wika ay hindi isang neutral na instrumento ng pagbukadkad ng kasaysayan. Bagkus, ito ay isang instrumentong binabaluktot at hinuhulma at pinapasunod ayon sa layon ng may poder—ayon sa mithiin ng may mga balaking mangdomina at managumapay laban sa iba. Walang wikang walang muwang kung gayon—at sa lahat ng panahon, ay taglay nito ang komplexidad at kumplikasyon ng kairalan, ng pag-iral, ng pagsasaysay, at ng kasaysayan. May dugo at isinakripisyong buhay sa maraming wika lalo ng nga wika ng makapangyarihan. Sa pagbabasbas ng Simbahang Katoliko sa imperyalistang Espanya at Portugal sa kanilang layong manakop ay ang pagbabasbas gamit ang wika ng kasagraduhan at kabanalan—na nagwaging wika ng imperio —at ang dokumento ng opresyong naganap sa kasaysayan ng pagsakop sa mga di-sibilisado at di-binayagang lupain ay nasusulat sa wika ng imperyalista at kolonialistang panginoon. Wika ang nagwarak sa maraming kaisipan—at wika rin ang nagbigay puwang sa pagkakatuto na ang pangyayaring ganito ay hindi naaayon sa kahingian ng katarungan sa ano mang anggulo, sa alin mang paraan ng pagsipat. Ang tanong ay ito: sino ang gumagamit sa wika at sa anong layon ito ginagamit? Para kanino ba ang mapagpalayang basbas at angkin ng wika ng tao? Mahabang kalbaryo ang pinagdaanan ng mga kolonisado at nasakop na mga komunidad—na karamihan ay lehitimong mga ‘bansa/banwa/pagilian’ sa pagpapakahulugan nitong pangkultura. Marami sa proseso mismo ng pagsakop ang opisial na pagkakait sa mga nasakop ng kanilang wika at kultura—ang pinakatiyak na paraan upang makakaseguro ang manakop sa kanyang pagsakop, hindi lamang sa literal na lupain ng mga sinakop kundi ang mas delikado—at mas masaklap pa rito: ang pagsakop sa kaisipan at kamalayan ng mga sinakop sa pamamagitan ng pagsira sa pagpapahalaga sa kanilang wika bilang puntodebista nila sa kanilang sarili at sa mundo, hanggang sa bandang huli ay di na kayang pag-ibahin ang sinakop ang kanyang aping kalagayan at ang mapang-aping paraan ng kanyang mananakop, at sa wika ng pagsakop, ay naroroon na lamang ang makapangyarihan politika ng lengguahe ng mapagpanggap na pagmamahal na lengguahe ng mananakop. Testigo ang napakaraming kasaysayan ng pagsakop ng ganito—hanggang sa ang wikang katutubo ng mga sinakop ay maibabaon sa limot, kukutyain, mawawalan ng pagpapahalaga, mamaliitin, at lahat ng mga ito ay nangyayari sapagkat ang wika ng sinakop ay hindi na nagsisilbing tagapamagitan sa mundo—sa pagsipat sa kung ano ang totoo at mahalaga kundi sors ng kahihiyan. Mananaig at magtatagumpay ang imperio. Mananaig at magtatagumpay ang kolonisador. At ang maliliit na butil ng imperio ay maipupunla sa sinapupunan ng mga nagbibinhing kaisipan. At ang kolonisador ay magsasakatawang-katutubo at natibo. At sa bandang huli: walang kuwenta ang sariling wika. 3. Ang Maliit na Imperio at Neokolonial na Panginoon sa Nasyon-Estado Sabihin natin na isang pag-unlad mismo ang pagbubuo ng nasyon-estado, na isang pag-unlad din sa kasaysayan ng kanlurang kaisipan. Sa simula ay walang nasyon; sa simula ay walang estado. Sa simula ay mga pamayanang nagsasarili, nagsasalita ng kanilang sariling wika, at nangabubuhay ayon sa rekisito at exihensia ng pag-iral sa pang-araw-araw. Sa simula ay ang sistemang pangkaalamang taglay ng mga wika ng mga pamayanang pre-nasyon at pre-estado—sistemang pangkabatiran na sintesis ng matalas na pag-iisip at masinop na pagtatagpi-tagpi ng mga magkakaugnay na mga bagay-bagay na nagpapapayaman sa pagkakaintindi sa buhay pansarili at buhay komunal. Kung kaya: wala pa ang nasyon-estado sa hinagap—wala pa ito sa hiraya—ay naroroon na ang mga indihenosong pamayanan na kabilang sa mga ito ang may maunlad na istrukturang panlipunan. Ang paglikha at imbensyon ng nasyon-estado simula sa karanasang Europeo ay isang artifisyal na karanasan na bunga ng politikal na rekisito ng pagbabago ng mga politikal, ekonomik, at kultural na relasyon sa lugar na iyon ng mundo. Subalit sa kabila ng pagtatatag ng estado—at ang tagumpay na nakamit sa gawaing ito—nariyan ang signos ng opresyon, ang mantsa ng dugo, at ang naratibo ng karahasan. Isang halimbawa rito ay ang daan-taong pagpapanatili sa ‘pambansang’ simbolo ng Francia—ang Franses. Sa tala ng kasaysayan ng Francia na hindi alam ng nakararaming tao ay ang mapait at mapaklang pangyayari na sa pagtatatag ng pambansang wikang Franses ay isang Corsican, at kung gayon ay di Frances, ang may pakana, upang mapagtakpan ang kanyang hindi pagiging Frances at maitampok ang kanyang pagiging emperador. Sa ngalan ng nasyon-estado na Francia, ipapalaganap niya ang baluktuting nosyon ng Frances bilang ‘pambansang wika’ at sa kabilang dako ay mailagay sa alanganin, sa bingit-ng-kamatayan, at sa gilid-gilid kung hindi man pagkutya, ang lampas pitumpo pang lengguahe ng Francia. Sa karanasan ng pagtatatag ng nasyon-estado ng Espanya mula sa kanyang karanasan bilang imperyo, na noong ika-16 na dantaon ay walang kapantay maliban sa Portugal, ipinilit ang isang uri ng wika, ang Espanyol, na maging isang ‘pambansang’ wika. Sa pagsasakatuparan ng ganitong adhikain, ang iba pang malalaking wika—mga lingua franca sa iba pang bahagi ng Espanya tulad ng Catalan, Andalusia, at Basque—ay nailagay sa peligro. Walang pribilehiyo at entituladong ibinibigay sa iba pang wika maliban sa Espanyol—at tulad sa Filipinas, mayroong palihim na pagbabalewala sa iba pang mga wika maliban kung ito ay Ingles o Tagalog. Ang layon sa pagtatatag ng ‘pambansang wika’ ay dalisay—malinis sa malinis, sapagkat kailangan ding maitatag ang ‘nasyon’, kailangan ding mabuo ang ‘nasyonalismo’, at kailangan din ang komunikasyon. Subalit maling-mali ang kaparaanan sapagkat upang maipatupad ang mga naturang layon ay himihingi naman ito ng kamatayan—o kung hindi man, ay pag-uurong imbes na pagsusulong. At ang pag-uurong na ito ay may kakambal na kataksilan: ang paglimot sa sariling wika, ang pagsipat dito bilang di mahalagang salik ng pagkatao at pagkasino, at ang kawalan ng importansiya nito sa buhay ng mamamayan. Sa frente, kung gayon, ng pagsasagawa ng kabansaan, ang kahingiang ‘pambansang’ wika sa katotohanang multilingual ang nasyon-estado ay nangangailangan ng asintadong pagtitimbangtimbang sa epekto nito sa mamamayan. Ang pagbibigay ng citizenship sa isang wika ay di gawaing makatarungan kung ang duluhan nito ay ang pag-eetsapwera sa iba pang mga wika ng multilingual na nasyon-estado. Ang di kritikal at di mapagkalingang pagpapasya tungkol sa palagiang pangunguna ng nasyon-estado sa lahat ng mga karapatang pantao kasama ang batayang karapatan sa sariling wika at sariling kultura ay nangangailangan ng ibayong pagsusuri, at ng kritikal na pagtataya sang-ayon sa rekisito ng demokrasya at hustisya. Totoo ngang importante ang imahinasyon sa nasyon-estado—sa imahinasyon ay ang unang ontolohikal na realidad ng isang dakilang pangarap sa kabansaan. Subalit hindi kinakailangang iisa lamang ang wika ng nasyon-estado sa hirayang polikal; ang imahinasyon ng nasyon-estado na nauuwi lamang sa iisang wika ay di natutugunan ang hamon ng multilingualismo at multikulturalismo. Kung gayon, obligasyon pangdemokrasya at panghustisya—at kung gayon ay obligasyong moral—ng nasyon-estado ang pagkilala sa iba pang wika ng kanyang nasasakupan kung ibig nitong maging tapat sa tipan sa kabansaan. Hindi maaari na ang pagpipipribilehiyo ay sa iisa or iilang wika lamang kahit nagpasya na ang isang nasyon-estado na magiging isa siyang nasyon-estado at nangangailangan ito ng wikang pambansa. Ang tipan sa demokrasya, ang tipan sa hustisya, at ang tipan sa pagkilala sa karapatang pantao ay mga parametrong di maitatatwa ng kontratang panlipunan, tulad ng pagbibigay sa mga mamamayan ng karapatang pag-aaklas—ng pagbabalikwas—kung ang kanilang karapatan at kung ang kahingian ng hustisya at demokrasya ay hindi isinaalang-alang. Ang kalkulus ng politikal na interest ng nasyon-estado para sa iisang wika lamang upang maisakatuparan ang ‘pambansang’ komunikasyon at ‘pambansang’ diskurso ay isang ilusyon lamang kung hindi ito nakabatay sa mga batayang karapatan ng mga virtual na signatori sa panlipunang kontrata—ang pinakahuling taumbayan na may sariling wikang kaiba sa wika ng sentro. Sa paglaganap ng politikal na konsepto ng nasyon-estado mula sa kanyang mga ugat noong ika-16 na dantaon hanggang sa magiging piho ito noong ika-18 dantaon sa pagtatag ng nasyonestado ng Inglatera, ng Alemanya, ng Espanya, at ng Francia—pawang mga halimbawa ng malagahum na pagsasapraktika ng ‘pambansang’ wika—nangibabaw ang estado at nawala ang nasyon, o sa ibang salita, nangawala ang mga nasyon sa mga bagong tatag na nasyon-estado. Nanaig ang estado at tuluyang pinipi ang mga tinig ng ibang mamamayang ‘ginawang iba’ sanhi ng bagong politikal na realidad. Isa lamang ang maaaring piliin ng mga mamamayang ganito: sumunod alinsunod sa kahingian ng linguistikong inhustisiya o dili kaya ay tuluyan nang mabura sa politikal na mapa ng bagitong nasyon-estado. Sa madaling salita, ang Corsican na tulad ni Napoleon Bonaparte ay kinakailangan mag-akto bilang mamamayan ng Francia, at kahingian ng kanyang pagsasadula ng kanyang pagiging mamamayan ang kanyang pagsasalita ng Frances at hindi Corsican, na isang dialekto ng Italiano. Sa pagsasadula ng pagiging mamamayan ng maraming citizen sa nasyon-estado, paulit-ulit ang pagpapanggap tulad ng matagumpay na pagpapanggap ni Napoleon. Hanggang sa ngayon, ang mga maliliit na Napoleon ay nasa siwang ng ating mga politikal na buhay, sa Filipinas man o sa ibang bayan. 4. Ang Pagwasiwas ng Kapangyarihan ng Kapital at ang Dominasion ng Ibang Wika sa Ibang Wika Tulad ng kapangyarihang kakabit ng pananakop sa mga pisikal na lupain at mga di-kitang lupain ng kaisipan at mga mundong taglay ng kamalayan ng mga mamamayang sinakop, at pagsulong ng modo ng produksyon sa ekonomiya mula sa pyudal na paraan patungo sa kapitalismo nasinindihan ng industrialisasyon ng mga maunlad na mga bansa simula noong ika-19 na dantaon, ang kapangyarihan ng puhunan na nasa kamay ng iilang kapitalistang elit ay kakambal ng mga wikang kanila. Madaling makita ito—at sa kontemporaryong panahon, ang pinakaultimong halimbawa nito ay ang patuloy na pamamayagpag ng mga wika ng mga kasangkot sa G-7 o ng Grupong 7: Aleman sa Alemanya, Ingles sa Britanya, Niponggo sa Hapon, Ingles sa Estados Unidos, Ingles at Frances sa Canada, Frances sa Francia, at Italiano sa Italia. Dito, hindi dami ng nagsasalita ang sukatan ng kapangyarihang taglay ng mga wika sa G-7 kundi ang kapangyarihan ng kanilang industrialisadong ekonomiya. Sa pito, litaw ang pangingibabaw ng Ingles sa kapangyarihan nito sa tatlong bansa—at ito ang nagsisilbing parametro kung bakit sa ngayon, ang buong mundo ay tila nagkukumahog na matuto sa Ingles. Ang mantra ng edukasyon sa lengguahe, magpahangga ngayon, ay ang pagiging bihasa sa alin man sa mga wika sa G-7 lalo na sa Ingles. Sa mga bansang kolonisado ang sistema ng edukasyon at kamalayan, nagsisilbi pang sukatan ng kakayahan ng pagiging bihasa sa Ingles. Una na rito ang Filipinas, na magpahangga ngayon ay lito pa sa kanyang angking bendisyon—ang kanyang kayamanan sa dibersidad ng kanyang mga wika. Lito ang Filipinas kung papaano niya gagamitin ang yamang ito—kung papaano niya gagawing puhunan ang bendisyong kanyang-kanya. Imbes na tingnan ito bilang basbas ng buhay, tinitingnan ng Filipinas ang dibersidad ng kanyang mga wika bilang liability. Pareho ang landas na tinatahak ng puhunan at wika: kung sino ang may puhuhan, siya ang may kapangyarihang magtakda kung ano ang wikang iiral. Sapagkat ang puhunan sa Filipinas ay nasa kamay ng kapitalistang elit, o ng uring transnasyunal na namumuhunan na madalas ay nagsasalita ng Ingles, lohikal lamang, sa lahat ng mga illohikalidad ng di makatarungang lipunan, na ang itatakda—at iwawasiwas na wika ng nakapangyayari at wika ng ekonomiya—ay Ingles. Ang pagsulpot ng mga call center—ang lahat ng uri ng offshore services mula sa mga bansang nagsasalita ng Ingles—ang pinakakongretong prueba ng ganitong pagpapalagay. Ang pagsasanay sa mga narses at therapist hindi lamang sa kakayahang medikal at paramedikal kundi sa wikang Ingles ay dagdag na patotoo ng pagkakambal ng puhunan at wika. Hangga’t ang Filipinas ay walang kakayahan mamuhunan, hindi kailan man mangyayari ang pagpapalagap ng mga wika sa bansang ito maliban kung mayroon pagbabago sa mga aktitud ng mga kasangkot sa kultural na buhay ng bansa. Sabihin mang mahalaga lahat ng mga wika—at walang wika ang walang puwang sa ating mga pamayanan—kung sa araw-araw na pagsasapraktika ay binabaha tayo ng mga simbolo taliwas sa kung ano ang nararapat, matitinag ang isip hanggang sa darating ang panghihina at susuko sa kapangyarihan ng makapangyarihang wika. Ang ganitong realistikong pagsipat sa wika at ang ugnayan nito sa puhunan ay nang-uuntog sa atin—at nagpapaalaala sa mapaklang nagaganap sa realidad. Subalit kailangan bansagan ang ganitong signos, pangalanan kahit mapait at masaklap, at mula dito ay maghanap ng kaukulang tugon sa mga tanong. O remedyo sa inhustisya sa wika. 5. Ang Walang Pakundangan Paninira ng Globalisasyon sa Partikularidad ng Pagkatao Ang wika natin, ang wika ng bayan, ang wikang Filipino, ang wika ng mundo—lahat ng mga ito ay mahalaga. Walang eetsapwerahin, walang inietsapwera. Subalit sa kapangyarihang taglay ng globalisyon at ang mapangwarak nitong bunga sa mga pamayanan sa iba’t ibang panig ng mundo, makikita natin ang kabalintunaan, hindi pangungusap tungkol sa kahalagahan ng mga wika kundi ang mapanirang dulo ng globalisadong utak. Kung ang globalisasyon bilang proseso ay extension ng irasyunal na lohika ng mga nasyon-estadong industrialisado at makapangyarihan, kinakailangan nating aminin na sa labanang pangkultura, ngayon pa lamang, ay kailangan na nating magbalikwas at umalagwa. Ang kairalan ng mga maliliit na wika ay nakasalalay na lamang sa sentimyento ng mga ispiker—o ng mga linguist na mawawalan ng erya ng pagpapakadalubhasaan. Sa globalisadong modo ng produksyong ekonomik, kapag kumurap ang makapangyarihang bansa, kukurap din ang mga maliliit; kapag humatsing ang Estados Unidos,hahatsing ang lahat; at kapag magkakamot ng Hapon, magkakamot ang lahat kahit wala nama kakamutin. Ang reflex na reaksyon na ganito ay sanhi ng kaisahan ng isip sa kagandahang loob ng globalisasyon, at sino mang kokontra ay walang puwang sa globalisadong kalakaran ng buhay. Ang problema sa globalisayon ay kung papaano nito bibigyan ng espasyo ang walang kapangyarihan wika—at walang kapangyarihan sapagkat wala itong puwang sa ekonomikong balangkas ng kanyang pamayanan. Ang problema sa globalisasyon ay kung papaano nito bibigyang puwang ang dibersidad na tunay na realidad sa buong mundo—at sa Filipinas din. Ang problema sa globalisasyon ay kung papaano nito iakma ang kahingian ng global na wika sa wika ng mga nasyon-estado, at sa mga wika sa loob ng mga nasyon-estado, tulad ng problemang taglay ng wikang pambansa ng isang nasyon-estado. Ang problema sa globalisasyon ay kung papaano pagtatagpuin ang katotohanan na lahat ng mga wika ay mahalaga sa kabila ng pagiging mahalaga rin ng wika ng mundo at ng wika ng bansa. Ang problema sa globalisasyon ay kung papaano igagalang ang mga wikang pampamayanan samantalang tinuturuan din ang mga mamamayan sa mga pamayanang kultural ng birtud ng kanilang pagsapi sa higit na malaking pamayanan. Tulad ng mga naunang tensyon sa kasaysayan ng mga wika ng tao, nananatiling malaking tanong ang kahalagahan ng wika at ang pagsasapraktika sa pagbibigay pagpapahalaga sa mga wikang ito. Hindi sapat ang retorikang ampaw—ang kailangan ay ang retorikang may kakayahang magsagawa ng pagpapatotoo sa pagpapahalaga, hindi lamang sa mga takdang panahon ng buwan ng mga wika kundi higit sa lahat sa pang-araw-araw na buhay ng mga pamayanang tagapag-ingat ng mga wika. Ang pagdakila sa global na wika at ang pagsasapedestal sa wikang pambansa ay kinakailangan suriin—at ang pagsusuri ay kinakailangan magmumula sa isang realisasyon na ang wika ay tao, at ang tao ay wika—at kahit kailan ay di maaaring paghiwalayin ang mga ito. Tulad ng hindi maaring paghihiwalay ng taong Aleman sa kanyang wikang Aleman. Tulad ng hindi maaring paghihiwalay ng taong Amerikano sa kanyang Ingles. Tulad ng hindi maaring paghihiwalay ng taong Filipino sa kanyang wikang pambansa—at higit lalo sa wika ng kanyang pamayanang kultural. Ang kairalan ng tao ay historikal—at linguistik. Lahat ng kairalan pantao ay pinapapamagitanan ng wika. Sa wika ang henesis ng kairalan at pagkasino, sa wika din ang apokalipsis. Napagtatanto ang kairalang iyan sa pamamagitan ng mga kategorya ng kanyang historikal na karanasan, mga kategorya ng kanyang panahon, ng kanyang pook, ng kanyang pagkasino. Ang hamon sa globalisasyon—at sa globalisadong pag-iisip—ay kung papaano nito luluwagan ang makitid nitongturnilyo ng pang-unawa na lampas sa kanyang mga makipot na pader. 6. Pangwakas: Kung Bakit Di Maitatatwa ang Kahalagahan ng Mga Wika Ang mga pilosopo ng wika—at lahat ng nagmumuni-muni tungkol sa wika mula panahon ng antigo magpahangga ngayon–ay sama-sama sa pagtanggap ng batayang dalumat sa wika bilang balay ng pagkatao, bilang tahanan ng espiritu. Sa pananahan ng kaluluwa ng tao at ng mga komunidad sa wika, naroon na nananahan din ang katiwasayan ng isip, ang kapayapaan ng puso. Dito sa tahanang ito ay ang mga familyar at mga muhon na makakatulong sa pagmamapa sa karanasang mahalaga—at mahalaga sapagkat sinasalamin ang pagkasino, ang mga naisi, ang mga pangarapin sa mabuting buhay, sa kaaya-ayang buhay hindi lamang para sa sarili kundi sa lahat na nananahan sa wika na nagbibigay ng durungawan upang masipat ang realidad sa paraang punumpuno ng pagsusuri at pangako, pag-analisa at pag-asa, at pag-ako atpagbalikwas upang muli at muli ay mangarap ng mabuti at matiwasay na buhay. Lahat ng mga ito ay nagagawa natin dahil sa wika: pinapamagitan nito ang distansiya ng ating mga layon at ang ating danas. Mahalaga ang lahat ng ating mga wika: binubuksan ng mga ito ang saradong pagsipat sa mundo at karanasan sa isang siklo ng walang katapusang pagsasara at pagbubukas. -30Mga Referens Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. Verso. Danesi, M. and P. Perron (1999) Analyzing Cultures. Indiana U Press. Gellner, E. (2006) Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell. Mongia, P., ed. (1996) Contemporary Postcolonial Theory. Arnold. Petracca, M. and M. Sorapure (1998) Common Culture. Prentice-Hall. Pertierra, R. and E. F. Ugarte, eds. (1994) Cultures and Texts: Representations of Philippine Society. U of the Philippines Press. Ranciere, J. (2003). Ed. and intro by A. Parker. The Philosopher and His Poor. Duke UP. Said, E. (1993) Culture and Imperialism. Alfed A. Knopt. Salazar, Z. (1996) “Ukol sa wika at kulturang Pilipino,” sa P. Constantino at M. Atienza, eds. Wika at Lipunan. U of the Philippines Press. Shor, I. and P. Freire (1987) A Pedagogy for Liberation. Bergin and Garvey. Silverman, H., ed. (1990) Postmodernism Philosophy and the Arts. Routledge. Smith, L. T. (2006) Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, U of Otago Press. Tinio, R. (1990) A Matter of Language: Where English Fails. U of the Philippines Press. Willis, P. (1990) Common Culture. Westview Press. November 13, 2008



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Dr Dacudao’s Defense of Multilingualism (Note: This is Dr. Jose Dacudao’s response to Roberto Anonuevo’s attack on me and Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, the advocacy for multilingualism, and multicultural education. Let history be the judge for this continuing systemic exclusionary tactic of the supposedly ‘better brains’ of Tagalog aesthetics, like Anonuevo’s, a kind of aesthetics being passed off as Filipino, and ergo, ‘national’. Dr. Dacudao, a brain surgeon based in Davao City, is one of the leading lights on the movement for linguistic and cultural justice in the Philippines.)

Trolling Anonuevo

Roberto Anonuevo is a member of the WIKA group, the Tagalista NGO that tried to use the Supreme Court in its campaign to totally replace English with Tagalog in our schools. If Anonuevo and his fellows have their way, they will extinguish every non-Tagalog Philippine language. Below is an article of his that used to be in the blogsite, that reveals the typical mentality of Tagalistas, and my comments. He personally attacks Professor Aurelio Agcaoili and snipes at Dr. Ricardo Nolasco; and also hits at multilingualism and Federalism. As a member of Save Our Languages through Federalism who advocates multilingualism and Federalism, I am obliged to state opposing opinions.



(filipino at ang kaso ng multilingguwalismo (http://dakilapinoy.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/filipino-at-ang-kaso-ngmultilingguwalismo/)Nobyembre 4, 2008 ni Roberto Añonuevo)



(Nakakubli sa kalabuan ng ipinakakalat ni Aurelio Solver Agcaoili hinggil sa kaniyang akdang “countering tagalism and tagalogization (https://aurelioagcaoili.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/countering-tagalism-and-tagalogization/).” Ayon sa kaniya, ang “Tagalogism is an attitude—a mindset that has trapped us into a belief of a Philippine nation-state as revolving around a center and only this center is important.” ) What else is happening? Professor Agcaoili is essentially correct. (Tinatangka niyang destrungkahin ang pananaw na “Tagalog” at yanigin ito sa posisyon bilang batayan ng Filipino na wikang pambansa.) Of course. If we non-Tagalogs do not start doing this, we will disappear as distinct peoples. Already, we have been marginalized, turned into second class citizens in our own places by the attitude of Tagalistas such as Anonuevo. (Ang ganitong haka-haka ay bulaklak ng dila na nagpapalagay na dominanteng wika ang Tagalog, na nasa Imperyong Maynila, at ang Tagalog na ito ay nakaukit sa kamalayaan at kalooban ng bawat Filipino upang kumilos siyang parang robot na sunod-sunuran sa isang makapangyarihang sistema, sa pambihirang gahum na umiiral nang sarili, at nagtatangkang burahin ang iba pang taal na wika sa Filipinas.) Anonuevo implies that there is no problem at all, that we should continue with the present system. This is typical Tagalista propaganda – nothing is wrong so do not advocate your language rights and right to exist as distinct ethnolinguistic peoples. In fact, anyone who approaches the minority status of the non-Tagalog languages of the Philippines pretending that there is nothing wrong has already revealed his adherence to Tagalog Nationalism, either consciously or not, since by default Tagalog Nationalism is virtually the only language ideology that is being propagated in our educational institutions and national mass media. He wants this condition to continue. He wants to maintain the idea that to be a good ‘Filipino’ one must be a ‘nationalistic’ Tagalog. Anonuevo and Tagalistas want this to be literally true, to replace every non-Tagalog citizen of the Philippines with Tagalogs. (Kung ang “Tagalogism” ay isang uri ng saloobin, dapat ilugar ni Agcaoili kung ano ang pinag-ugatan nito. Ngunit mabibigo ang sinuman na pigain sa kaniyang artikulo ang ugat ng “Tagalogism” o “Tagalism” at kung ikokompara sa ibang kinabitan ng hulaping “-ismo,” ay kulang na kulang para tawaging ideolohiya, kung hindi man diwaing gumagabay sa kabuuan ng mga Filipino—nasa loob man o nasa labas sila ng Filipinas. Maiuugnay din ang “Tagalogism” sa “Tagalogization” na aniya’y “…is that long juridical, linguistic, political, economic, and cultural process that has made it certain that this trap, this temptation relative to the entitlement, privileging, and valorization of Tagalog, is going to continue to have its stranglehod over all of us, Tagalog and non-Tagalog peoples alike.” ) It seems that Professor Agcaoili incurred Anonuevo’s ire, by saying the truth. A man’s worth is often known by the enemies he makes. Kudos to Professor Agcaoili. (Mapanganib ang ganitong mapanlahat na pahayag dahil ang “Tagalogization” ay ipinakita rito na sumasaklaw hindi lamang sa wika, kundi maging sa iba pang aspekto ng lipunan, at kung hindi susuhayan ng mga patunay ni Agcaoili ay mananatiling mito lamang na kaniyang inimbento para yanigin ang Tagalog na pinagbatayan sa pagbubuo ng isang wikang pambansa.) As mentioned, if we non-Tagalogs do not do anything to shake the system, we will disappear. Most of the smaller groups are already ‘moribund’, as defined by UNESCO, ethnolinguistic groups defined by less than 300,000 spekaers. These are likely to die off in less than a hundred years. The biggest non-Tagalog ethnic group, the Cebuano-speaking Visayans, will disappear in about 300 years if present trends based on National Statistics Office surveys continue. Anonuevo, the language killer, regards the preservation of these languages apparently as dangerous. (Hindi isinaalang-alang dito ni Agcaoili ang kasaysayan, at tila ba ang Tagalog ay lumitaw na basta-basta lamang.) It is Anonuevo who does not have the proper historical perspective. Tagalog was enforced into our educational institutions only during WW2 by the Japanese colonial government, as a means to strengthen psychological control from Manila . That is how Tagalog ‘floated’ up. Before WW2, there was a flowering of literature in a variety of Philippine languages including Ilocano, Kapampangan, Cebuano, Ilonggo, and so on. Tagalog was merely one of the Philippine languages. Now if you don’t speak it, people like Anonuevo regard you as worth less than nothing. (Kinaligtaan niya ang mahabang pakikibaka ng Tagalog hindi lamang bilang wika, at ang paglampas nito sa hanggahan ng pook ng Katagalugan upang magparaya sa buong bansa, at gamitin bilang tulay na kayang makapag-ugnay sa iba-ibang wika sa Filipinas. Ito ang mito na kathang-isip ni Agcaoili at siyang ibig ihain sa lahat ng Filipino.) Talking about forgetfulness, Anonuevo conveniently forgets the struggle of non-Tagalogs to survive the imposition of Tagalog Nationalism. We are in danger of disappearing, and it is even well-documented in National Statistics Office surveys that since WW2 the percentages of non-Tagalogs in the Philippine population have been steadily decreasing. What do non-Tagalogs need Tagalog for anyway? We only need two languages to survive in the world, our native tongue which gives us our ethnic identity and which should be taught as special grammar and literature subjects in their traditional areas so they won’t die out, and English, the international language of science and commerce, which should be taught in at least the Science subjects, as more than 90% of new Science and technology is done in the English language. We certainly can communicate with other Philippine ethnic groups in English and we did so during the American colonial period with no trouble at all, the way Indians until today use English to communicate with each other amidst the diversity of their languages. English functions as a socially leveling tongue in the Philippines, the use of which renders all ethnic groups socially equal for there is no ethnic group that claims an identity defined by English, the same way that French is used as a socially leveling tongue in parts of Africa, thus protecting small ethnolinguistic groups from extinction. English is also a necessary language for our overseas workers, and in science and commerce. The imposition of Tagalog among us has resulted only in a feeling of social inferiority among non-Tagalogs, a degradation of our education since our youth now find it harder to comprehend English Science and other educational books, and has also degraded our English language skills, so that our overseas workers find it harder to communicate abroad. These are the very same workers that keep our economy from collapsing. Without our workers’ knowledge of English, our economy would collapse. Apparently what Anonievo wants is to idiotize and pauperize us, in his campaign to turn us all into Tagalogs. (Ang “Tagalogism” na ginamit dito ni Agcaoili ay dapat ikinabit sa “Inglesismo” na uri ng wikang ibig gamitin bilang tulay ng pagtuturo sa lahat ng antas ng paaralan sa Filipinas. Ingles ang banyagang wika na malaki ang ambag upang makaligtaang linangin hindi lamang ang Filipino, bagkus maging ang mga lalawiganing wika—at kabilang na rito ang Tagalog—sa Filipinas. Ingles at Espanyol ang ipinakalat sa sistema ng edukasyon sa bungad ng siglo 20, at naglagay sa panganib ng pagkabura ng kapuwa wika at kultura ng iba’t ibang lalawigan. Ingles ang humalili sa Espanyol at ang ginamit sa Kataas-taasang Hukuman, na pawang Amerikano ang mga mahistrado maliban sa punong mahistradong Filipino. Ingles ang bumahang teksbuk at aklat na pawang inangkat mula sa Estados Unidos, at kakaunti pa noon ang mga babasahing nasusulat sa mga taal na wika sa Filipinas. Ingles ang ginamit sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas—na paaralang tinutustusan ng estado—at napailalim ang Tagalog sa larangan ng wika ng pagtuturo. Noong bungad ng siglo 20, ang bakbakan ay mauuwi sa panitikan, at nagbigay ng mabuting halimbawa ang mga Tagalog kung paano mapananatili ang kanilang wika, at iyon ay sa pamamagitan ng pagsusulat at paglikha ng iba pang uri ng sining. Sa ganitong lagay, hindi tumupi ang mga manunulat na Tagalog, at patunay ang kanilang mga akda kung paano lumaban sa gahum ng Ingles. Totoong may iba pang lalawiganing wika, gaya ng Bikol, Ilokano, at Sebwano ang nakibaka laban sa Ingles at nagsikap mangibabaw. Ngunit ang mga dapat sanang tagapagtanggol nito—at kabilang na rito ang mga politiko at manunulat—ay sumanib sa Ingles imbes na pagyamanin ang kani-kanilang taal na wika. Taliwas ito sa Tagalog na hindi lamang ipinagtanggol ng mga Tagalog—bagkus kinakitaan din ng potensiyal ng ibang mamamayan—na may kakayahang maging lunsaran ng pambansang wika na magagamit upang pagbuklurin ang mga lalawigang dating binibigkis nang sapilitan ng Ingles. Ang Tagalog ay hindi dapat minamaliit bagkus dapat pa ngang papurihan, dahil kaugnay nito ang kasaysayan sa pagbubuo ng kabansaan, at paggigiit ng kalayaan, mula sa dikta ng mga pasimuno ng Ingles at banyagang edukasyon na ang tuon ay para sa ikagagaling ng merkado at gahum ng dayuhan.) Anonuevo glorifies Tagalog and rants against English. He should seriously try unlearning all of whatever English he knows, and see whether or not people will understand him in the internet. The trouble is that he wants all of us to unlearn English too. That would not be advisable. If Anonuevo wants to make an idiot out of himself by unlearning all the English he knows, fine. Hopefully all other Tagalistas would follow suit. We should not. (Hindi ipinaliwanag ni Agcaoili ang pakahulugan niya ng “Tagalog,” bagaman mahihinuha sa tabas ng kaniyang pananalita na ang “Tagalog” ay siya ring “Filipino” na lumalaganap ngayon sa bansa. Ang pagtanaw na “Filipino” bilang baryedad lamang sa “Tagalog” ay pailalim na panunuligsa sa Filipino upang hindi ito makatayo nang bukod sa orihinal na anyo at laman ng Tagalog. Ang linya ng pangangatwiran ni Agcaoili ay nahahawig sa pahayag ng sinibak na pansamantalang punong komisyoner ng Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino na si Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, na ang “Tagalog” at “Filipino” ay iisang uri lamang alinsunod sa mga katangian nitong panggramatika, at kaya lamang nagkaiba ay dahil sa pagpapalit ng pangalan. Isa itong simplistikong pagtanaw, at pagtanaw na nagtataglay ng sadyang pagkaligta sa iba pang aspekto, gaya ng kasaysayan, konteksto, kaligiran, panahon, at siyang maaaring makaaapekto sa ebolusyon ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa.) Well, Anonuevo did not miss a chance to snipe at the patriotic Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, a better linguist than he is, and a man who sincerely wants to preserve the Philippine languages. Dr. Nolasco will be known as a hero by non-Tagalog Filipinos a hundred years from now, while Anonuevo’s name will be a forgotten nightmare. A man like Anonuevo who would throw potshots at a man like Dr. Nolasco who just lost his job in order to protect the ethnolinguistic identities of the peoples of the Philippines fully deserves to be sniped at as well. As said above, a man’s worth is often known by the enemies he makes. Kudos to Dr. Ricardo Nolasco. You have our eternal gratitude for your efforts in trying to save the Philippine languages. Anonuevo also goes back to the old justification to impose Tagalog under the guise of the WW2 Tagalista cliché of ‘evolving Filipino’. This cliché which the Tagalistas of the past have gotten incorporated into the Philippine Constitution exists for that purpose alone, as a justification to impose Tagalog. The ‘Filipino’ that is being used in the school curriculum is nothing more than honey-coated Tagalog, with Tagalog grammatical rules. Let us suppose that a Philippine President or future leader decides that in order to ‘evolve’ Filipino further, it should adopt Ilonggo Visayan grammatical rules, and even the Ilonggo sing-song intonation, which foreign outsiders seem to love listening to. This is not too far-fetched because the present honey-coated Tagalog Filipino has similar although not identical grammatical rules as Ilonggo Visayan and a lot of cognate words, such that it is generally easy for any real Tagalog to learn Ilonggo. I am sure the hypocritical Anonuevo will be the first to protest this new evolutionary trend in the Filipino language. (Ang taguring “Filipino” ay hindi lamang “Tagalog,” at ang Tagalog ay hindi kayang kumontrol sa magiging anyo at laman ng Filipino. Ang mungkahi ng gaya niCarl Rubino na “muling pagsasabalangkas” ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa ay isang magandang proyekto, ngunit ang ganitong mungkahi ay tumatanaw lamang sa wika na tila walang sariling buhay at nakatiwalag sa mga tao na gumagamit ng wika, at ipinapalagay na ang mga gumagamit ng sari-saring wika ay nagkakaisa sa pagsasaayos ng kolektibong wikang mahihinuhang may labolabong gramatika at palaugnayan, at yamang walang isang wikang gagawing haligi ng pagpupundar, ay malayang isiping pagtatayo ng maalamat na Tore ng Kalabuan.) Tagalistas like Anonuevo cannot even call a spade a spade. If Anonuevo were to enroll in a Linguistics program in any country except the Philippines (what irony) and insist that the present ‘Filipino’ is not Tagalog, he would flunk out. If ‘Filipino’ and Tagalog are mutually intelligible and are mutually unintelligible with all other languages in the Philippines , then they are the same language, and the other Philippine languages are not ‘Filipino’. Tagalog though may occur variants called dialects, one of which is the language that is being enforced in our schools as ‘Filipino’. ‘Filipino’ is a Tagalog dialect, mutually intelligible with all other dialects of Tagalog such as Bulaceno or Batangueno, and mutually unintelligible with Ilocano, Pangasinense, Kapampangan, the Bicol languages, the Visayan languages, and so on. If Anonuevo were to insist that to be a ‘Filipino’ one must learn to speak ‘Filipino’, then many citizens of the Philippines would not be ‘Filipinos’. This might look like a petty semantic problem, but it is not. Apparently, Anonuevo and other Taglistas want to achieve the ideal ‘Filipino’ by forcing all the future children in the Philippines to learn and speak nothing but ‘Filipino’, thereby effectively killing the Philippines’ ancient ethnolinguistic identities. (Ang Filipino ay pagkilala sa kabansaang may iba-iba mang wika ay tinutuhog ng isang malaganap na wikang may sapat na malig na magagamit ng bawat lalawiganing wika at sa komunikasyon ng mga Filipinong maaaring ang kinamulatang wika ay wikang lalawiganin. Ang Filipino ay paraan ng pagtulay at pag-uugnay sa mga taal na wika sa Filipinas upang pagbukluran, habang masinop na nagbubukas ng pinto sa anumang internasyonal na wikang makapagdaragdag sa kaban ng pambansang talasalitaan, pahiwatig, diskurso, pakahulugan, gramatika. at iba pang kaugnay na bagay. Ang Filipino ay isang natatanging paraan ng pagsagap sa daigdig, ngunit paraan din kung paano titingnan ng mamamayang Filipino ang kaniyang sarili at ang kaniyang bansa.) What Anonuevo means is that everyone should become a Tagalog in the national setting. As mentioned, if ‘Filipino’ were legally defined to be Ilonggo, which theoretically could happen as nowhere in the Philippine Constitutions does it say the ‘Filipino’ should be Tagalog, Anonuevo would be eating his own words and vomiting them out. (Bagaman ang Filipino ay maipapalagay na “ikalawang wika” para sa ibang taga-lalawigan, ang pagiging “ikalawang wika” nito ay malayo sa kapuwa pakahulugan at karanasan ng pagiging “ikalawang wika” ng gaya ng Ingles na banyagang wikang ang Anglo-Amerikanong tradisyon ay kakatwa kung ilalapat sa kaligiran, konteksto, at diskurso ng Filipinas. Bukod pa rito, ang Filipino ay dapat sipatin nang higit sa saklaw ng lingguwistika, bagkus kaugnay ng konsepto ng pakikipagkapuwa, kabansaan, at kasarinlan. Pinapatay ba ng Filipino bilang pambansang wika ang mga lalawiganing wika? Hindi. Ang palagay na ipinapaibabaw ang “Filipino” para patayin ang mga lalawiganing wika ay walang batayan, at magsisimula ito kahit sa talakayan, saliksik, at pagtatalong naganap nang itatag ang Institute of National Language (INL) noong 1936 para sa planong bumuo ng pambansang wika, at alinsunod sa itinatadhana ng Saligang Batas ng 1935. Mahalaga noon ang pagtataguyod ng pambansang wika, dahil ang Filipinas ay dumaan sa yugto ng digmaan at kolonisasyon, at tanging Ingles at Espanyol ang umiiral na opisyal na mga wika sa Filipinas. Ang pagpili sa Tagalog noon na magiging batayan ng wikang pambansa ay sumailalim sa pag-aaral, pagsasarbey, pagsusuri, at talakayan, kaya hindi makatwiran ang paratang ni Agcaoili na tila tunggak ang mga kasapi ng INL na madaling nilamon ng administrasyon ni Pang. Manuel Quezon.) As usual, Anonuevo pretends there is no problem. He also again makes a statement that degrades English and promotes Tagalog. Anonuevo should try proving his own words by forgetting every English word he has ever learned and see if does not make him look like an idiot. He takes the chance to praise Quezon, one of the fathers of Tagalog Nationalism. (Nakaligtaang banggitin ni Agcaoili na kaya pinili noon ang Tagalog na maging batayan ng wikang pambansa ay dahil ito ang pinakamaunlad na wika nang panahong iyon, mulang estruktura at mekanismo hanggang panitikan at paggamit ng malaking bilang ng mga Filipino, alinsunod sa itinatakda ng Batas Komonwelt Bilang 184. Mula noon, ang Tagalog ay lumampas sa dati nitong hanggahan at gamit, at malayang tumanggap ng iba pang salita, pakahulugan, pahiwatig, at diskursong nagmumula sa lalawiganing wika—sa kabila ng paggigiit na gamitin ang Ingles sa buong Filipinas. Hindi rin totoong purong Tagalog lamang ang nanaig noon. Kahit sa kautusang ipinakalat ni Celedonio Salvador, na Patnugot ng Edukayon, noong 15 Nobyembre 1940, iminumungkahi ang pagpapalawak ng talasalitaan at wikaing idyomatiko, at ang ganitong kabigat na responsabilidad ay hindi lamang tinatanaw na para lamang sa Tagalog bagkus maging sa ibang taal na wika sa bansa. Kung nagkulang man sa paglinang ng ibang lalawiganing wika ay hindi dapat isisi sa Tagalog, kundi sa baluktot na patakaran at programa ng pamahalaang pumapabor sa paggamit ng Ingles. Nang sakupin ng Hapón ang Filipinas, ayon kay Teodoro Agoncillo, sinikap ng Hapón na palaganapin ang Nihonggo sa buong bansa ngunit nabigo dahil sa kakulangan ng mga guro at pagkatanto na ang banyagang wika ay mahirap palitan ang mga naunang banyagang wika bukod sa mahirap burahin ang mga taal na wika sa Filipinas. Nabatid din ng Hapón na tanging ang pambansang wika lamang ang kayang bumigkis sa kapuluan, at nagkataong nakapag-ambag na naman ang Tagalog. Kahit si Pang. Jose Laurel ay nakita ang kahalagahan ng isang wikang pambansa, lalo sa panahon ng digmaan, ligalig, at karukhaan, at ang wikang ito, aniya, ay magagamit upang magkaintindihan ang mga tao na nagmula sa magkakaibang lalawigan. Muli, hindi arbitraryo ang pagpili sa Tagalog bilang batayan ng wikang pambansa. Nagsagawa muli ng sarbey at pag-aaral at talakayan, at napatunayang Tagalog ang may pinakamabisang katangian para maging haligi ng wikang pambansa, na susuhayan ng mga taal na wika sa buong kapuluan.) Naturally the Japanese wanted to promote Niponggo. But that does not change the fact that they promoted Tagalog as well, and it was only during Japanese times that Tagalog was first enforced in our Educational system. Tagalistas before WW2 could not do it because of strong resistance from the non-Tagalog peoples of the Philippines . Before WW2, Tagalog was just another Philippine language at par with Ilocano, Pangasinense, Kapampangan, and so on. Anonuevo should be transported in a time machine back to WW2 where he could lick the boots of the colonial Japanese authorities to lend credence to his words. (Binigyan umano ng pitong dekada ang Tagalog, ani Agcaoili, na maging batayan ng pambansang wika ngunit nabigo ito at winasak pa umano ang milyon-milyong Filipino. Marahas ang ganitong paratang, at ang paratang na ito ay hindi isinaalang-alang ang mga panahon, kaligiran, at kontekstong pinagmulan ng Tagalog na dumaan sa mga digmaan at pag-aaklas; sa diskriminasyon ng Ingles, Espanyol, at Hapones; at kahit sa saliwang pagpapahalaga ng mga politiko at akademiko sa Filipinas. Kahit ang Kumbensiyong Pansaligang Batas noong 1971 ay isang madilim na yugto sa Filipino, dahil ang mga kalahok noon ay nais gawing pambansang wika ang Ingles na nabago lamang nang magprotesta ang mga aktibista at tuligsain ang gayong pakana ng mga demagogong politiko. Pambihira ang Filipinas na ang Saligang Batas—na pagbabatayan ng iba pang batas, kautusan, at kaugnay na patakaran—ay isinulat sa Ingles, at hindi nabigyan ng pagkakataon na gamitin ang Filipino na maging pangunahing wika sa gayong kahalagang instrumento. ) What’s wrong with having multiple national or official languages, including English? Nothing, and it has many advantages. Many countries have multiple official languages, including English, as for example in India. It’s high time the Constitution should be amended to one that recognizes multiple official languages; or none at all and leave the language issue to LGUs which no doubt would be prone to pronounce English as one of their official languages. Koreans are even going to the Philippines to learn English. Anonuevo should go to the airport and wave a placard at every arriving Korean and rant at them at how evil English is. (Totoo ngang nakasaad na ang pambansang wika ay kikilalaning “Filipino,” ayon Saligang Batas ng 1972, ngunit ang pagdurugtong ng pariralang “shall be evolved, developed and adopted based on existing native languages and dialects without precluding the assimilation of words from foreign languages” ay pailalim na pinahihina ang estado ng Filipino. Sa pananaw ng mga delegado, walang kakayahan ang “Filipino”—na parang nasa yugto ng pagkasanggol kahit marami nang napatunayan kung pagbabatayan ang mga palimbag na panitikan—at ang pambansang wikang ito ang sinusurot ni Agcaoili na nabigong magsilbi sa buong Filipinas. Ikakatwiran ng mga lingguwista at sosyolingguwista na kailangan ang estandardisasyon ng wika para maitaguyod ang ortograpiya, at makapaglaan ng unipormadong anyo ng mga sangguniang aklat. Ngunit malabo ang ganitong punto kung isasaalang-alang kung gaano kalawak ang nasabing estandardisasyon, na ang paglihis sa pamantayan ay maiisip na kakulungan kung hindi man patunay sa katangahan.) As mentioned above, there is no provision in any Philippine Constitution past or present that says that the National language is Tagalog. Anonuevo would be the first to squeal foul if for example Ilonggo were suddenly defined to be the national Language ‘Filipino’. He cannot stomach the thought of any other language supplanting the Tagalog of his chauvinistic and racist dreams. This guy simply discriminates against all non-Tagalogs in the Philippines. (Nilupig ba ng Tagalog ang iba pang wika sa Filipinas, ayon sa paratang ni Agcaoili? Hindi. Naging ahente ba ang Tagalog para durugin ang lunggati at simulain ng iba pang taal na wika at kultura sa Filipinas, ayon sa paratang ni Agcaoili? Hindi. Ang pagtanaw na nilupig ng Tagalog ang iba pang taal na wika sa Fiipinas ay ibang paraan ng pagsasabing napakahina nga ng mga taal na wika sa buong bansa at kayang diktahan ng isang wika lamang. Walang makinarya, kapangyarihan, at impluwensiya ang mga pasimuno ng Tagalog kung ihahambing sa panig ng mga tagapagsulong ng Ingles, dahil Ingles ay nakalusot na maging opisyal na wika at ginagamit sa iba’t ibang sangay ng pamahalaan, batasan, negosyo, at akademya magpahangga ngayon. Humina rin ang mga taal na wika dahil kulang ang mga manunulat at tagapagtaguyod nito, at isang sanhi ang penomenon ng tinaguriang “pagpapalit-wika” at may kinalaman dito ang gahum ng Ingles. Ang Tagalog kung naging batayan man ng Filipino ay isang pangyayaring dapat tingnan sa positibong paraan. Ang Tagalog marahil ang pinakaprogresibong wika na nangunang magbukas ng pinto para tumanggap ng malawakang pagbabago na halos ikalusaw ng sarili nito, ngunit ginawa iyon ng Tagalog hindi para sa mga Tagalog lamang kundi upang isilang muli sa ibang anyo at nilalaman sa pakikipagtulungan sa iba-ibang taal na wika, at maging batayan ng wikang pambansa. Ang tagumpay ng Filipino ay ngayon pa lamang nakikita, hindi lamang sa tradisyonal na mass media, kundi maging sa internet. Malayo na ang iniungos ng Filipino, at nilampasan na nito ang baryotikong komiks, at humahangga sa matatalim na diskurso. Sinusubok na ang Filipino sa iba’t ibang lárang, at hindi ako magtataka kung maging wika rin iyon kahit sa hukuman, negosyo, medisina, at akademya.) Making a reaction to Anonuevo is admittedly a boring job, for he keeps on repeating the same stuff in various forms again and again. He once again pretends nothing is wrong with the system. Well two can play at that game. So I repeat, instead of imposing Tagalog on people who want to learn English, he should impose it on himself alone. This guy should really try talking laws, business, and medicine to the international community of lawyers, businessmen, and doctors only in Tagalog, and place a video of it in ‘you tube.’ However, I am afraid he would look like an idiot. To my readers, even now, which paragraphs are you reading? The ones Anonuevo is writing in Tagalog or the ones I am writing in English? (Ang nakapagtataka’ y ginagamit na dahilan ang multilingguwalismo upang buwagin ang naipundar nang tagumpay ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa. Ang bersiyon ng multilingguwalismo na isinusulong ngHB 3719 (2008 Multilingual Education and Literacy Act) ni Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo ay magpapalakas sa reenkarnasyon ng Ingles, at hindi sa mga lalawiganing wika, dahil wala itong itinatakdang sapat na pondo, impraestruktura, kawani, at iba pang bagay para sa pagbubunsod ng malawakan at sabayang pagpapalago ng mga taal na wika. Ang multilingguwalismo ay mauuwi sa laway, at animo’y nakatuon para sa itatatag na Federalismo—na ang bawat lalawigan ay makapagsasariling estado na bibiyak lalo sa Filipinas—at kaya mahihinuha ang pagpipilit na idikit ang wika sa usapin ukol sa kultura, heograpiya, politika, at ekonomiya. Kakatwa ito dahil ang Filipino, na mula sa Tagalog, ay laging sumusuporta sa pagpapalago ng mga lalawiganing wika at sa pagbibigkis ng mga mamamayan. Kung nabigo man ang gaya ng Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino noon at magpahangga ngayon ay maibubunton ang sisi sa marurupok nitong patakaran, programa, at pamunuang kulang sa bisyon at sigasig na paunlarin ang mga taal na wika sa Filipinas, at kabilang na rito ang mga punong komisyoner na sina Ponciano Pineda, Nita Buenaobra, at Ricardo Nolasco. Ngunit hindi ito kataka-taka. Ang nasabing Komisyon ay kulang din sa badyet, kulang sa mga dalubhasang kawani, kulang sa mahuhusay na pamunuan, kulang sa kasanayan, kung hindi man sadyang kulang-kulang, kaya ang nagiging silbi magpahangga ngayon ay maging katuwang ng Malacañang sa mga hakbanging pampolitika nito. Pilit na pag-uuri ang “Tagalogisasyon” at “Tagalogismo,” at ito ang dapat tanggapin ni Agcaoili. Ang “tiranya ng Tagalogisasyon” at makamandag “na pang-aakit ng Tagalogismo” ay kathang isip lamang ni Agcaoili, at nababahiran ng lihis na pagbasa sa politikang pangkultura, at hinango sa diskurso ng Ingles na pilit iniaangkop bilang paraan ng pagtanaw at pagdestrungka sa Filipino. Na hindi makatwiran. Ang karanasan ng Filipinas ay malayo sa karanasang multilingguwal at multinasyonal na pamayanang nagaganap sa Europa, Afrika, at Amerika, at siyang ibig ipadron sa pagbasa sa karanasan sa buong kapuluan. Wala ring mabalasik na deskriminasyon at prehuwisyo na ipinataw ang Filipino na ikalulusaw ng mga taal na wika sa Filipinas, kompara sa nagaganap sa ibang bansa, kahit pa sabihing ginamit ang Filipino sa pag-aaral ng ilang lárang sa elementarya at hay-iskul. Ang realidad sa Filipinas ay Ingles pa rin ang ibig panaigin bilang wikang opisyal, na mapagbalatkayong taguri sa “wikang pambansa,” at ang pinakabagong halimbawa ay ang patakaran na tanging Ingles lamang ang dapat umiral sa Pamantasan ng Maynila, at gawing midyum sa pagtuturo ang Ingles sa lahat ng antas ng pag-aaral alinsunod sa dikta ngDepartamento ng Edukasyon. Hindi rin isinaalang-alang ni Agcaoili na ang migrasyon, urbanisasyon, at pagpapalit-wika ay kaugnay ng pagkamatay ng mga taal na wika, dahil higit na pipiliin na gamitin ang Ingles para mapangalagaan ang ekonomikong interes at seguridad pampolitika, o kaya’y para makaligtas sa deskriminasyon sa larangan ng hanapbuhay, gaya sa pagpasok sa call center at pagtatrabaho sa ibang bansa. Matagal nang pinapatay ang Tagalog noon pa man kahit sa pagbasa ng kasaysayan, at kahit sa loob ng Maynila na ibig ay Ingles ang manaig sa edukasyon, negosyo, batasan, at hukuman; at ngayong narito na ang Filipino na naghahain ng pambihirang posibilidad bilang pambansang wikang makabibigkis sa mga Filipino ay isasalang muli sa marahas na bibitayan ng prehuwisyo at kaululan. Paunlarin natin ang mga taal na wika sa Filipinas; ngunit huwag naman nating patayin ang alimbukad ng isang wikang pambansa. Ang paglingon sa ebolusyon ng Tagalog tungong Filipino ay makatutulong sa paglinang at pagpapayabong ng mga taal na wika sa Filipinas, at madudukalan ng aral at karanasan, ngunit hindi ito magaganap hangga’t patuloy na ginagamit na wika, diskurso, at pananaw ang Ingles para paikutin ang kapalaran ng mga Filipino.) Anonuevo clearly does not believe in the present UNESCO International Year of Languages. Nor does he believe in the UN drafts that call for the promotion and teaching of the dying marginalized languages of the world, to which the Philippines is a signatory to. In the above rambling paragagraphs, Anonuevo tries to troll the Gunigundo bill which he really hates not only because it rationally promotes English, but also because it mandates the use of non-Tagalog Philippine languages in elementary schools. This is something he cannot openly say. Tagalistas like Anonuevo will always be against elevating non-Tagalog languages to the status of Tagalog. Anonuevo in his rant above manages to troll theGunigundo bill, Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, Professor Aurelio Agcaoli, multilingualism, and Federalism all at the same time. I use the word troll above, because trolling has nothing to do with right or wrong arguments, but about taking potshots at someone or something. At this end stage,Anonuevo is now venting his Tagalista ire on theGunigundo bill, Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, Professor Aurelio Agcaoli, multilingualism, and Federalism. What do they all have in common? They all are against the idea of Tagalog Nationalism and all promote the preservation of non-Tagalog Philippine languages. Dr. Nolasco is portrayed as lacking in nobility. What baloney. How much nobler can a man get, endangering his life’s career for the sake of an ideal he and his Linguistics teachers in the USA believe in – to save the dying languages of the world? Professor Agcaoili is misrepresented as having a hallucination. Coming from someone who writes rather incoherently, attacking someone of the intellectual caliber of Professor Agcaoili sounds downright funny, especially when he mixes it up with migration, urbanization, tirades against English, the evolution of Tagalog, the fate of Filipino, and pretends all the while that nothing is wrong. What a remarkable trolling technique. Anonuevo should next go to India or Australia and tell the people there that they are idiots for allowing Federalism to split up their countries. November 13, 2008 Leave a comment

A Letter to Jed

A LETTER TO JED ABOUT OUR MOVEMENT TO FREE US FROM THE CLUTCHES OF THE TAGALOG-FILIPINO NATIONAL LANGUAGE Jed, we must first address the ambiguous regard and mindless apathy by which issues pertaining to our ethnicity, language, and culture are looked upon by our people. We ask ourselves, why does such unconcern persist among our people? Why don’t they instead possess an unequivocal, firm, strong, and determined regard for our ethnicity, language, and culture? Our people show an unconcern that is pestilent to an already damaged culture like ours. We will have to address them first, for if not, our fight for linguistic freedom will be jeopardized by the very traits our people possess. As we try to fathom the causes of a complex social behavior and understand why it lingers in our culture, we see factors prevailing in the whole system cultivating the continuance of such traits. The first one, our fragmentation and disunity, antecedes the establishment of the Tagalog Filipino national language. It is a social phenomenon that sustains and spawns an ambiguous regard and mindless apathy. Let us remind ourselves that from our fragmentation and a lack of unity sprang forth an ugly outgrowth – the failure of past Cebuano leaders to survive the political skirmish that occurred over the consideration of a national language. The second determinant factor is the establishment of the “Filipino” national language itself. By a sly, clever wording in the Philippine constitution that “Filipino is the national language,” the Tagalista framers avoided an unyielding opposition to Tagalog while anointing it a national sounding name, “Filipino”. Its protagonists are armed with a constitutional mandate and by enforcing it, also forcefully inculcate on other ethno linguistic groups a Tagalog-Filipino nationalism. A dominating national language endows great benefits and advantages on those whose mother tongue it is but places a discriminatory burden on the unfavored ethno linguistic groups. As Tagalog-Filipino gained ground through our educational system it gave rise to another reality. Some of our people are gradually losing pride of ethno linguistic identity in favor of the Tagalog Filipino nationalism. To those who have accepted the forced Tagalog-Filipino ascription, their original identity is something of an ambiguous meaning, it having been confiscated or forcefully distanced from them. You will find that some of them are affecting an air of superiority when speaking in Tagalog Filipino. The forced patronage of a Tagalog-based national language subordinates ethno linguistic pride and diminishes it. What once was a strong ethno linguistic identity among Visayans is becoming a subordinate sociopolitical entity when pitted against the push of a Tagalog Filipino national identity. To the Tagalistas, this is national coherence. The burden is more than just a matter of psychological resentment. The forced ascendancy of Tagalog Filipino coupled by disallowing the teaching of native languages in our schools put a grip of restrictiveness into the development and propagation of our native languages. When Tagalog-Filipino dominates in our educational system and seizes initiatives for the promotion of local languages, there is not only a restrictiveness; there is a repression of our basic right to propagate our language. The prestige of our language and identity takes an ill-favored plunge and gradually, our fervor for our own language and identity is weakened. All these assaults have flung us to a path where we don’t want to be – a path of abortive appreciation of our language and culture. It is a process that goes unnoticed while it forces in us a nebulous recognition of our true identity and encourages a malign neglect of our language and culture. We are now realizing what this means to us – cultural and emotional ties to our true ethnicity grown denser by the decade as the Tagalista assault tends the fire of detachment from our original ethnicity. Indeed, it is a fertile political environment that shores up our people’s ambiguous regard and mindless apathy toward our own language, ethnicity, and culture. To us, this predicament is linguistically undemocratic and culturally unjust. A situation can turn out from bad to worst. Economic realities exacerbate the language plight we’re in. We are embroiled in the discussion and the fight for linguistic freedom but to the common people on the street, it is the gut issues that really concern him or her. I mean to say that when the demands of the belly assert themselves, the finer things in life, like language, culture, and the arts are consigned to the lowest rung in the list of priorities. We can not expect our people to be on our side fighting for a linguistically democratic and culturally just country. You will find Jed that there are only a few who are vocal about a vision for our own language and culture. The sporadic initiatives and wavering, private endeavors of those interested few are not enough. Among our people, there is very little awareness, if not nil, that the development of our language and culture lies fallow while Tagalog-Filipino advances. Political and economic realities melted our people’s awareness about the sad plight of our language and taxed them to yield to an onerous demand by the Tagalistas – that our people accept and internalize the Tagalistas’ forced ascription on us as Tagalog-Filipinos. To us, this is an oppression. Our raw confrontations with political and economic realities make it hard for us to untangle that grip of restrictiveness that suffocates the development and propagation of our native languages. But as a people, we must first struggle to renew from within each of us in order to break free from our own apathy and fragmentation. Issues that haze our approach to our own ethnicity and befog our movement need to be dug out from their unfathomable obscurity, untangled, understood, and addressed before we can even start a movement resisting the Tagalista oppression. Our people need to know how these two traits are pestilent to an already damaged culture like ours. We should educate them so that they will develop a keen sense of social responsibility toward our own language and culture. When we’ve changed our people’s unconcern and impassivity, we can count on each one to care to do something within the limit of each one’s capacity. But first, how do we acquire a will power that is so strong as to enable us to overcome all opposition, especially that which arises from our own? That would be our first challenge. Jed, we must remember that character shapes destiny. A part of the fight is that it is character that will arrange our destination. Possessing the desired character and the persistence is power that will equip our inner selves to carry on the fight. For the longest time, our ethno linguistic rights and interests have been under assault and in the absence of an effective counterforce that assault can only grow more brutal. The coercive political power that Tagalistas use to attract followers to a Tagalog Filipino nationalism can partly be attacked by a soft power, a power that comes from within each of us. The power to find a positive foothold of imagination for our ethnicity, language, and culture starts from within each of us. We first have to manifest outwardly our pride of ourselves as Cebuanos, Warays, Capampangans, Ilocanos, Bicolanos, Karay-a, Ilonggos, Sambals, etc. before we can imagine ourselves as Filipinos. A love for our language that is not anemic but is charged and forceful will supply the motive force for the continued propagation of our language. Coupled by our people’s solidarity, this will be our saving grace and the Tagalista’s nightmare. We must recast ourselves and before we know it, the metamorphosis will seep into every sector of our society and the change becomes exponential. This is the way we can move into position. Our second challenge would be to assert our rights. We must confront those who have a monopoly over the label “nationalist” or “patriot” or “Filipino heritage” and those who have the monopoly of writing and teaching our history thru Tagalog lenses. Those are the Tagalistas, the manufacturers of knowledge, with their importunate demands for the Tagalog-Filipino national language to be viewed or recognized as a “Filipino heritage.” They tout it as an integration or a hybridization of our varied languages and cultures when in essence it is 99% Tagalog. These are the same Tagalistas who, at every opportunity, display their manifest intent of wrongfully labeling people with strong ethno linguistic feelings as regionalist while promoting Tagalog Filipino not as ethno centric as it is, but as nationalistic. Jed, the Tagalista academics will challenge native speakers of any language if they choose to abandon their language or if they choose to propagate it. They’ll say, “If you lose your identity, it’s all up to you.” Tagalistas would want us to believe that factors internal to the speech community decide whether our various languages get marginalized or if they die, as if it were possible to separate internal and external factors and thereby assess the blame. Certainly, in the final analysis, speakers make language choices themselves. But there comes a point when multilingual parents no longer consider it necessary or worthwhile for the future of their children to communicate with them in a low-prestige language variety. Children, in the long run, are no longer motivated to acquire active competence in a language that is lacking in positive connotations such as youth, modernity, technical skills, material success or education. The languages at the lower end of the prestige scale retreat from ever increasing areas of their functional domains, displaced by higher prestige languages, until there is nothing left for them to be appropriately used about. In any particular speech community that is suppressed and threatened by a dominating language, this scenario can happen. We know that this can happen slowly without us noticing it. While it is true that the speakers themselves have a responsibility to nurture their language and culture, the whole picture of a language being suppressed and marginalized involves factors that are both internal and external to the speech community. The social forces underlying the native speakers’ choices that may result in languages dying or becoming marginalized are not only composed of factors that are internal to the speech community itself. The process always reflects external forces beyond its speakers’ control: repression, discrimination, or exploitation, in this case, the Tagalista onslaught. Already, a Manila-centric culture dominated by Tagalog cultural influences in media, schools, and institutions cultivates intolerance and sustains an atmosphere of ethnic snobbery and cultural supremacy. Stoked by Tagalog cultural domination, you could hear ethnic slurs against Visayans in Tagalog television programs, Tagalog movies, and even in personal jokes among the Tagalogs. What else could you call these? They are certainly insults to ethno linguistic identity and in plain view, Tagalog ethno centric prejudice in action. While the speech community itself has a role in deciding what to speak and what language to impart to their young, changes in attitudes and values that discourage the teaching of its vernacular to children and encourage loyalty to the dominant tongue are brought about by the uneven terrain in Philippine linguistic reality. That terrain is of course, favorable to Tagalog than to any other language. There are varying degrees by which any of our varied languages are marginalized and while not all are dying, some are just hemorrhaging too fast.

Jed, what the Tagalistas actually want us to believe is that changes in attitudes and values that lead to a shifting of loyalty to the dominant tongue won’t happen without complicity on the part of the losing speech community itself, them being the ones who will decide whether to shift to the dominant tongue or not. But let us expose the truth: It is also true that external forces are responsible for this predicament and in this case, it is the preferential constitutional mandate on Tagalog-Filipino. Deliberately not allowing our native languages to be taught in schools and deliberately not providing a wide political avenue for it to flourish and develop will enfeeble its development and impact on its prestige. The Tagalista explanation that the speakers themselves are responsible if they lose their language is overly simplistic. That argument lends support to justifying their prerogative to coerce assimilation or blame the losing speech community for acquiescing and eventually, losing their language. The crafty Tagalistas knew that a calculated renaming of Tagalog was necessary in order for us to embrace Tagalog-Filipino nationalism. Thus, a name which beguiles the population into thinking that language and citizenship are the same was chosen. “Filipino,” is nothing but a national sounding word concept that effectively blunts the ideal of multiculturalism. It buttresses the Tagalista position that having the national “Filipino” language is an absolving excuse to forego of our linguistic rights. But it cannot be hidden that government-sanctioned censure of local languages in schools, institutions, and media while allowing a state sponsored national language monopoly of these avenues has a negative impact on our native languages. The forced ascendancy of Tagalog Filipino subordinates, seizes, and paralyzes the development of our varied languages. People in academe recognize that our native languages are stuck in baneful circumstances and are aware of a language predicament that needs to be fixed. We should advocate for and defend our linguistic rights. The 1987 Constitution states that, “The national language of the Philippines is Filipino. As it evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of existing Philippine and other languages.” A “Filipino” national language, propagandized and forcefully taught as a fascinating hybridization of all our languages and cultures, is essentially Tagalog. All cultures are hybrids, as the Tagalistas will claim, but the few Visayan words included in “Filipino” are an emotional consideration to the Visayans. “Filipino” is valid only to those in government and in the Tagalista academe, whereas people recognize that Manila Tagalog and “Filipino” are more or less the same languages with different labels. Ethnic tensions fester, not totally unnoticed, behind the emergence of a Tagalog national language and the reality of an unequal playing field in the Philippines’ linguistic situation. People in the provinces recognize that the emergence of a Tagalog-based national language results into a great political, economic, and educational hegemony by the Tagalog ethnic group over the other ethnic groups. Pointing to a higher Tagalog hegemonic power becoming the standard, regional communities come to realize that a national language ideology does not allow non-Tagalogs to retain linguistic diversities. This creates a sense of feeling that non-Tagalogs are second class citizens and other ethno linguistic groups gave severe critics to this phenomenon as a fourth colonization by the Tagalogs (after the Spaniards, Americans and Japanese, in that order). Thus, the national language policy is a crisis not only to the Binisaya speaking ethnic group, but to all ethnic groups in the Philippines. It is a torment that wrings the heart of every proud Bisaya, knowing that our mother culture and language plus one intellectualized language like English are abundantly adequate for us. The question that springs out of our hearts is: Why should we, Visayans accept a forced ascription of a Tagalog Filipino national identity? Why should we accept a Tagalog-Filipino national language when that, too, is foreign to us? To pay our dues as nationalistic Tagalog Filipinos is difficult to extract because it is based on a language and culture that is foreign to us. This paradigm does not fit the landscape of linguistic equality that Visayans silently envision. The 1987 constitution further elaborates that, “The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary medium of instruction therein.” These are statements intended for emotional considerations to non-Tagalog ethnic groups. This constitution is defective because it does not provide for the constitutional protection of an ethnic group’s right to propagate and develop its language. Nowhere is protection for our varied languages and cultures expressly enshrined, nowhere is any specific provision that we have the right to propagate our language and culture and teach them in our schools. This brings us to a greater truth occurring in most colonial societies, once the struggle for self rule is over and independence is achieved: The most widespread genre of injustice in the world today is the hidden internal colonialism, justified as “nationalism” or some other convenient word-concept, that goes on unabated in former European colonies; and which has resulted in staggering poverty, destroyed ecosystems, monstrous primate cities, languages and ethno-linguistic peoples held captive and extinguished. This is a picture of the current Tagalog-Filipino Philippines. This is the Dark Age for a country that is now called the Philippines. Each one of us is coerced to put pride of our original identity in the backseat in favor of a forced ascription as TagalogFilipinos. It creates a sore feeling of dispossession from one’s true identity that is not outwardly manifested. The Tagalog people would never have to experience the same because the “Filipino” national language and identity is steeped on the milieu of their very own language and culture. There is no need to cross over ethnic lines. For non-Tagalogs, we are witnessing that a dichotomy of loyalties, one for a forcefully imposed Tagalog-Filipino nationalism and one for our own ethnicity is not possible without subjugating one to the other. We are subordinated to the ascription as Tagalog Filipinos and as the remaking of our identity into Tagalog Filipino surreptitiously continues, the more that the Tagalista establishment will demand from our people to possess, love and show, first and foremost, a Tagalog-Filipino identity. Insisting on that guidepost is a sore point because it is hard to extract and express a TagalogFilipino nationalism from us. We need a constitution that is not preferential to one ethno linguistic group and that is not restrictive to the others. Let us remind the Tagalistas that the torment of being forcibly ascribed a Tagalog-Filipino identity cannot remain latently manifested. We will carry a resistance movement so that this inner conflict inside our hearts will be outwardly manifested and prod us to action. Let us remind the Tagalistas that when a minority mother tongue and identity comes under attack, its users feel uncomfortable and experience an inner conflict. When people aren’t at peace with themselves, they can’t be at peace with others. The armed conflict in Sri Lanka between the majority Sinhalese and the minority Tamils had as a major cause the imposition of Sinhalese as the sole national language over the objections of the Tamils. In 1956, passage of the Sinhala Only Act in parliament made Sinhala the sole official language, and the Tamils resisted by armed conflict. Over the years, the violence associated with the introduction of the Sinhala Only Act forced an explicit reversion to parity of status to the two languages, Sinhala and Tamil, which came in 1987 and 1988 as part of a political settlement brokered by the Indian government. Violence is an effective way of communicating sensitivity of an issue that unfavored ethnic groups are passionate to another ethnic group with higher hegemonic power in the political, cultural, educational, and economic arena but is not sensitive to the issues felt strongly by the unfavored ethnic groups. In an ethno linguistically diverse Philippines, we will avoid resorting to violence to achieve linguistic and cultural equality as well as political and economic parity, areas presently dominated by the Tagalogs. But if all peaceful efforts fail, we shall not fail to count that as the last option. Thus, if a million Tagalogs need to be killed to get rid of that stupid national language, RISE! RISE! RISE! RISE! RISE!

What we seek is a Philippines in an enlightened age. Knowing that we are an ethno linguistically diverse country, we ask ourselves, what constitutional moorings must this country begin with? Forcing the language of one ethnic group such as Tagalog, under the guise of “Filipino” upon other ethnic groups is divisive and disruptive of the national fabric. We need a constitution that explicitly recognizes and sets provisions for the protection, development, and promotion of our varied languages and cultures. It must provide that every group has the right to use its own language in every domain, to preserve it as a cultural resource and to teach it in our schools. Let our Tagalog brothers know that the constitutional moorings of an ethno linguistically diverse country must begin with parity of status between ethno linguistic peoples. Mutual respect blossoms in a land of different ethno linguistic groups who are coherent in their recognition – of the truth. It is our birthright, it is our inalienable right that our languages are free to be used not only in the marketplace but in every domain – in government, schools, and media. The reality of a multi-ethnic nation should not be suppressed in favor of Tagalog masquerading as the “Filipino” national language. Without constitutional protection, the promotion of our various languages will continue to endure a grip of restrictiveness while the legalized ascendancy of Tagalog grants it the impetus to grow and develop as the national “Filipino” language. Our varied languages and cultures must become integral parts in the fabric of our national life. Legal protection for them must be enshrined in the constitution in order to give each language the impetus to be dynamic and robust. Our native language must be the official language in the areas where it is dominant – it is not an auxiliary official language as the present constitution provides. All Bisaya people must be made aware of Tagalista thinking about the national identity of a multi-ethnic Philippines because behind those concerns always lurks a conspiracy against ethno linguistic freedoms. We will reawaken every Bisaya to these truths. No Tagalog-Filipino national language must be allowed to lord over our birthright and inalienable right to teach our languages in our schools. Our way is the truth and it is only the truth that aims at preserving knowledge of who we are, knowledge of the best way we have found to relate each to each, each to all, ourselves to other peoples, and all to our surroundings. We hope not to go the way Sri Lanka has gone – armed conflict. The way should be parity of status and reciprocity and by it we mean that if we are to study Tagalog language and culture, the Tagalog ethnic group must be required to study at least one major language and culture in equally the same breadth and depth as we learn the Tagalog language and culture. All Filipinos, including Tagalogs, must be obliged to learn as many languages spoken from end to end of our archipelago. Knowing as much of the Philippines as possible, without prejudice would make us proud of our rich cultural heritage and help us understand each other. We could still be united while staying true to our original identity and flaunting it. An enlightened course would be to follow a pluralist rather than an assimilationist language policy and devise ways for including regional languages in the educational curricula. This pluralist perspective presupposes broad legislative support for the maintenance and development of any ethnic group’s language and culture. Establishing and recognizing the truth is one thing. The way legislation is written to express and protect the truth is another; but provided legislation comes up to the same fundamental sense of meaning as the truth it intends to recognize and protect. When it is, there is not an iniquitous language situation. There is wholeness. Our way, the way, is wholeness. A paradigm that creates a landscape of ethno linguistic freedoms must be achieved. Therefore, there must be no Tagalog Filipino national language, but in its place, all major languages must be declared as national languages and an effort to study each other’s culture and language must be instituted. It is the truth: It is not through domination by one ethno linguistic group over the others but through mutual respect and reciprocity that cross-cultural understanding and unity will blossom. Disunity results when there is no respect for each other’s cultures and languages. As the experience of Switzerland shows, assimilation into a larger nation-state does not necessitate monolingualism. A movement of a culturally and linguistically subjugated Philippines carried out by Tagalista rhetorical ghouls cannot hold through time. A nation with cultural and linguistic diversities such as ours should be built with mutual respect and parity of status between ethno linguistic peoples as the bedrock. For now, the paradigm of a Tagalog-Filipino nation is accepted only in sufferance. Unity does not come from a choice of the expedient, which is the Tagalog-Filipino national language.

When these truths are not in our hearts and minds, we will fail to act on them and the Tagalistas will continue to propagandize and forcefully teach to a credulous population that the “Filipino” national language is a fascinating hybridization of our varied languages and cultures. Jed, you will find it in our history how easy it is, just like slipping on a river stone, when our people fell into the agendas of those who are in power. Having the constitutional power and resources, the Tagalistas will propagandize that it will bridge the differences of the various ethnic groups. We will slip to the Tagalista drumbeat that for the sake of national unity we should be willing to sacrifice our ethno linguistic rights. A semblance of unity, there seems to be, when some of our people have already been subjugated to an assimilationist Tagalog-Filipino nationalism and don’t care about a pluralist policy. But underneath that fragile Tagalog-Filipino unity are cultural cleavages that fester. This assimilationist policy is working only for the Tagalog ethnic group whose language and culture a “Filipino” national language and identity are anchored on. A social division exists between the Tagalogs and the unfavored ethno linguistic groups. What is called for is much more equitable and productive paradigm of language use. Languages should be dynamic. For our Binisaya language to be robust and dynamic, it must flood into the educational and government institutions as well as the media. But when our own government forces it out of these domains and degrades it as an “auxiliary language,” as the present constitution provides, we could see that grip of restrictiveness that suffocates its propagation. Meanwhile, a Tagalog Filipino language that is preferentially treated by the constitution ensures its dominance in the domains of education, government, and media and provides the impetus for its development. By relegating the other languages to the home and market place only, they languish and are regarded lowly. As this is happening, promoters of Tagalog Filipino will merrily point out that a quick trip to any community market will confirm that the population speaks their native languages freely and thus these languages are alive and do not need to be taught in schools. We could not expect our people to appreciate and cultivate a high regard for our native language if it is not taught in our schools. Because it is their language and culture that Tagalog-Filipino nationalism is based on, the Tagalog people will continue to demonize regionalism while not looking at their own ethno centrism. Our regionalism is not an attempt to go back to a pure pre colonial past. It is an attempt to reclaim our pride and our true identity and repudiate the subjugation to a Tagalog-Filipino identity. It is an attempt to preserve our language as a cultural resource, to develop, propagate, and teach it in our schools. It is our response to a Tagalog Filipino nationalism that is bent on subjugating our varied ethnicities into a larger nation-state with a Tagalog-Filipino identity and unity. Other than force feeding “Filipino” as an integration of our varied languages and cultures which is a blatant lie, other than cleverly tying language and citizenship into one name, “Filipino”, what are the truths surrounding the establishment of the “Filipino” national language? When they say it can be fascinating to unravel all the sources and processes involved in the hybridization of “Filipino,” the Tagalistas are actually creating a positive spin on a national language that is 99 % Tagalog. The few Visayan words included into “Filipino” are an emotional consideration to Visayans. That fascinating hybridization is nowhere to happen and will remain a figment of the Tagalista’s overwrought ultra nationalistic imagination – that the Philippines become more and more linguistically and culturally homogeneous under Tagalog Filipino. “Filipino” somehow succeeded to establish political control over all other ethno linguistic groups. Had Tagalog been the name of the national language, it would not have succeeded. The Tagalistas’ espousal of an ideology of resentment to anything that is American is often used to justify the ascendance of Tagalog Filipino and discourage the use of English as an extension of American domination. Such sentiments are used to reject and treat English as foreign when in fact, to us Visayans, Tagalog Filipino is foreign as well. For something which was an outcome of political opportunism, the Tagalistas will argue that the establishment of the Tagalog-Filipino national language was decided upon by history. The Tagalistas could not face the stealth issue of the beginnings of the national language. History respects no secrets and the truth will come out eventually. According to official records and documents, the language provision approved by the Constitutional Convention of 1934-1935 was as follows: The National Assembly shall take steps towards the development and adoption of a common national language based on existing languages (Constitutional Convention Record, Vol. IX, pp 470-471). There was a sabotage of the Convention’s approved resolution on the national language when it was incorporated as part of the 1935 Constitution. Between the time the provision was approved and the time it was printed in the official copies of the 1935 Constitution, it was tampered with. The words “one of the” were inserted between the words “on existing” in order to read “on one of the existing.” When the constitution was printed, this provision read, “based on one of the existing languages” (1935 Philippine Constitution, Article XIV, Sec. 3). Then President Quezon created a commission to select the one language to serves as basis. To the commission, he appointed various experts on the principal vernaculars and made Jaime de Veyra of Leyte, a former resident commissioner in Washington, its chairman. After twiddling their thumbs for a while to earn their pay, they chose Tagalog, knowing that Quezon wanted Tagalog to be chosen. The altered provision pointed to Tagalog as the sole basis of the national language without mentioning it. Quezon was a Tagalog and was about the first to urge a common national language. We have to expose this Tagalista stealth, this knavery. The Tagalistas will tell us that “Filipino” reigns supreme from Aparri to Jolo. The truth is the language in the broadsheets, television, and the language spoken on the streets is Tagalog. We should have an international team of linguists arbitrate if indeed “Filipino” is a separate language or a dialect of the Tagalog language. At the present time, a “Filipino” dialect of Tagalog overloaded with English loan words spelled or altered “Filipino” dialect style is being concocted by Tagalista academics. The effect is “Filipino” is so stilted, so difficult to read and understand, that one is given a reading experience of a laboratory “Filipino.” A laboratory dialect that could not excite or inspire but instead confounds and bewilders readers as reading all those English words spelled “Filipino” style impede comprehension and reading appreciation. Nevertheless, the Tagalistas’ minds are warped with Tagalog-Filipino ultra nationalism and are keeping themselves busy concocting a prescriptive, laboratory kind of Tagalog aka “Filipino.” Jed, all these Tagalista untruths were meant to justify Tagalog-Filipino nationalism and create a positive spin around that political movement, could we fight it with the truth? The ultimate weakness of the “Filipino” national language is that it started on a deception and continued with a crafty contrivance of a national language renamed “Filipino,” a calculating way that has beguiled our people into thinking that language and citizenship are the same. We should not be afraid to expose Tagalista guile and craftiness such as claiming “Filipino” to be an integration of our varied languages and cultures, or their loathing of English as foreign and promoting Tagalog Filipino which to us is foreign as well. Should we continue writing in order to assert our rights? We should. To the rabid Tagalistas this idea might seem outlandish but if we fight the untruths they’re espousing with every fiber of our being, we can turn the tide. Any additional writing is not isolated and unconnected from all the others, but is rather an extension, a continuum of all efforts that has come before. Don’t worry Jed, all those years’ writings plus one more, this one added to the others, will surely turn the tide. If our efforts and luck in previous years have not been quite sufficient, never fear because we are capable of resurrecting sensitivity to language rights among the old and new generation. This inner anger in our hearts cannot remain latent. We will carry a resistance movement so that this inner anger in our hearts will be outwardly manifested and push us to action. Ethnic upsurge is happening everywhere in the world and the tenacity of regional identity and the attachment to language are evident. We have to expose our people to these Tagalista stealth and knavery and prod our people to advocate for and defend our language rights. It is by challenging Tagalista untruths and exposing disturbing, bitter truths that we can reawaken our people’s pride and elevate once again sensibility to language and cultural issues. The truths we expose can be amplified in its resonance when bound so well in an artful rendering that appeals to the silent anger in our peoples’ hearts. Jed, believe in the convincingness of truth when expressed like a work of art, that it has a vast potential of being irrefutable and powerful enough to take out the inner anger in our hearts. It will become an irresistible call to everyone to be proud of one’s original ethnicity. It is a call to our lawmakers that they ought to act on an iniquitous language situation. Truth has the capacity to change lives, sometimes by the sheer force of ideas communicated with felicity and grace. We will find that as long as that sense of ethno linguistic pride and liberty burns in the hearts of our people, we can reawaken it. When it dies there, no one can save it. The truest tribute to a language is not in the regimented classroom settings imposed by the Tagalista institution; rather, it is in peoples’ hearts and it can be seen or felt through their silent aspirations to promote their own language and culture. It can be felt from their silent yearnings to get rid of a colonizing Tagalog Filipino national language. It can be seen by their spontaneous collaboration in literary contests. We cannot remain strangely silent in advocating for our linguistic rights, nor can we continually be overwhelmed by decades of negative evaluation and subordination to a Tagalog Filipino national language and identity. The national language debate is not closed. It merely started. We are going to compete freely for the hearts and minds of our people. Let us be aware that if the Tagalistas succeed on suppressing regionalist aspirations and on instituting a nationalism based on Tagalog-Filipino, it will skew tribute towards the Tagalog-Filipino national language. We need to reawaken our people about advocating for and defending our language rights and unleash a vast reservoir of ethno linguistic pride. The “soul” of the nation called the Philippines does not reside in a Tagalog-Filipino nationalism. And how could we ask our people to pay tribute to our language, culture, and identity the way it should be due? How could we release an unbridled ferment of local language defense and promotion? How could we prevent this Tagalog Filipino nationalism from confiscating our true identity? As a way of rejuvenating our lost fervor, a cultural battle for hearts and minds must be waged. We need a Binisaya Language Month and fill it out with cultural activities. Let it be filled with persistent, traditional, and creative ways of language maintenance for our people to acquire a strong attachment and be empowered with a greater ethnic pride. We can utilize the Binisaya language as a centripetal force to unite Visayan speakers and strengthen a sense of ethnic solidarity. Let us inculcate discipline, propagate our people’s values using our own language and attract followers by the strength of those discipline, values, and culture. Nothing is more important than reawakening the spirit of ethno linguistic liberty that lies quiescent in our people’s hearts. Nothing is more effective in confronting an intense enroachment of Tagalism in our areas than by putting that ethno linguistic fervor back. A renewed interest that is charged with pride for our ethnicity will nurture a fierce love for our language. Daghan nga mga isla, apan usa ka katilingban, usa ka tinguha.

By writing about the truth we could strengthen the tenacity of regional identity and the attachment of an individual to his language. We need effective evangelizers to bring our people to realize the importance of advocating for and defending our language and culture. We should confront head-on this unflinching unilateralism about language by fighting for parity of status and reciprocity and defending our inalienable right to teach our language in our schools. Jed, let us remember that there is no place else to put the onus on reaching the ideal of an organizationally mature resistance movement but on ourselves. But how could we overcome our organizational immaturity when our people themselves show an ambiguous regard and mindless apathy toward our own ethnicity, language, and culture? By struggling to renew from within each of us! It is easy to say that but each one of us needs to possess an indomitable will in order to advocate for and defend our language and culture. That indomitable will is evasive. We must repair our damaged psyche. There must be an internal unraveling within our ethno linguistic communities that will make each one be aware of our linguistic and cultural rights and empower each one to advocate for and defend them. As soon as our struggle to renew from within each of us seeps into the mass sector, expedient and coerced symbols of unity like the Tagalog-Filipino national language, harnessed as a patriotic guidepost – even with its mighty apparatus of a constitutional mandate – will diminish in meaning. The strength of each one’s personal commitment becomes our triumph and our people will be ready to adamantly pursue linguistic and cultural equality, political parity and economic opportunity. There will be a shifting paradigm on language policy. Collectively, we will pressure lawmakers for a change in the language policy. We also need to understand who we are by looking into our past. What happened to us as an ethno linguistic group, we did not create nor design ourselves but nevertheless, we were willing collaborators to it. Our past reveals to us how easy it is, just like slipping on a river stone, when we as a people mindlessly fell into the agendas of those who are in power. Silently aspiring for a landscape of ethno linguistic freedoms is not enough. We should acquire a forceful vision for our language and culture. Without a sense of what’s honorable, right, and true, what buoys up in our culture is our habit of throwing up our lot with those who are in power. It is time to correct ourselves. To reverse this, our people must possess the indomitable will and the persistence to advocate for and defend our language and culture. Let us create a forceful vision and seize the shaping of our own destiny. After we’ve struggled to renew from within each of us, all of us will be a vigilant steward of our language and culture. An old Maori proverb will remind us: Uia mai koe ki ahau He aha te mea nui o te ao Maku e kii atu He tangata, he tangata, he tangata which means, You ask of me What is the most important thing in the world? My reply must be It is the people, it is the people, it is the people … Once again, Jed … possessing the indomitable will and the persistence is very important to carry on the fight. It is the people, it is the people, it is the people …when they possess the desired character and the persistence…who are going to help us succeed in our fight. We owe it to ourselves to struggle to renew from within each of us. Our government owes it to us to amend this iniquitous language situation. Ethnicity matters here. Our cultural-linguistic pride matters. Yours sincerely, Ronald Llanos October 18, 2008



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