Foul language

Language is dynamic.

The Filipinos had long prided themselves with their command of the English language. This thanks to the aggressive American colonial education program and evangelical missionary efforts in the country during the early 1900’s. And this proved to be a great advantage for the country for it gave us the edge over our Asian brothers in diplomacy and in the academics in the early to the middle part of the 20th century. But because of the stigma of colonialism and the search for nationalism, government policy makers embarked on a Filipinization program. The program kicked off with creating a national language based on the hundred different language groups (not dialects) in the archipelago. The aim is not only linguistic but also political for a national language can unite this country of many nations.

But the program failed miserably. We didn’t create a national language what came out of the effort is in reality Tagalog—just plain old garnished Tagalog. Talk to other people in the provinces using the so-called national language and they will tell you that you’re speaking Tagalog. Filipino is an illusion. There’s no linguistic amalgamation that occurred, that’s why Cebuanos almost revolted when they found out that Filipino would be based on Tagalog and not on Cebuano, which is the local language spoken by more Filipinos. For the Cebuanos the greatest consideration the Tagalog based Filipino proponents took into consideration is pure and simple politics; the capitol is in Tagalog region. The sad thing is there is still more Cebuano speakers than the Tagalog based Filipino. So much for a national language.

Aside from failing to create a true national language, Filipinization destroyed our English foundation for in order to promote the newly created national language and at the same time promote nationalism (the catch word during the post colonial period), the education bureau replaced English with bilingualism or the use of English and Filipino as the medium of instruction in public schools. We must remember that for 50 years the Americans initiated a massive English based education program in the country that resulted in the literacy rate of the Filipinos that our Asian neighbors envied then. But the irony is that the people who benefited from these programs were the ones who destroyed our proficiency in English in the name of nationalism. We didn’t achieve the nationalistic fervor the program wanted to achieve, but at least Filipinization and bilingualism was able to destroy our English proficiency and its intellectual benefits-- so much with Filipinization.

The search for a national language ended with the Tagalog based Filipino. But as argued above, Filipino, aside from earning the contempt from people of other language groups, is only predominantly used in the Tagalog regions. And although required as one of the mediumsof instruction in public schools, what is actually happening is that people in non-Tagalog regions use their own vernacular and not Filipino in teaching in their schools thus defeating nationalization. Aside from failing to unite the nation with one language, Filipinization did not even create an illusion of linguistic unity for the Filipinos. The buy Filipino made movement didn’t even buy Filipino. So much with nationalism.

Of course the formulators of the Tagalog based Filipino didn’t foresee the emergence of mass media and the power of information technology over language (only hindsight can do that) for if they did they would have stayed with English. What happened and is happening is that a new national language is emerging. It is neither Filipino nor English, it is both. The emergence of Taglish (this is not bilingualism but the fusion of English and Tagalog) is inevitable. This is because of the similarities in English and Filipino syntax (sentence structure), morphology (our rules on affixations is almost the same), and phonetics (our how you pronounce it-spell it rule is adaptable to English). Unfortunately proficiency in Taglish means incompetence in both English and Filipino. So much with Taglish.

The search for a national language is also the search for the true Filipino. This is has been going on even before the Americans gave the Philippines it’s independence (why do Filipinos keep insisting that we became in dependent in 1898 when in reality the last foreign forces that left the Philippine soil was in the late 1980’s.) The search for this Malay identity sometimes even took a ridiculous turn. An example is Jose E. Marco’s supposed discovery of the code of Kalantiaw. The logic behind this hoax was to prove to the world (or Americans) that the Filipinos were an ancient civilized people—they have government and laws. Mr. Marco forgot to take into considerations that with the harshness and barbarity of this so called code of Kalantiaw even the Vandals and the Barbarians would deny ownership of them. The sad thing was the Filipino swallowed this hoax because the Pinoys wanted to believe the precedence of Filipino civilization over the American’s. Why, there’s even a TV action series called “Mga Alagad ni Kalantiaw” in the early 1980’s.

Another ridiculous ridiculousness is the Marcos Maharlika (royalty) project. Everything was called Maharlika in those days. Channel 4 was Maharlika Broadcasting Corporation (the Government’s TV station), there’s Maharlika Highway, Maharlika Building, etc. One U.P. anthropologist did an etymological study of the word Maharlika and he found out that it means sexual virility, the true distinctive of the royalty and nobility. Why there was even the plan to change the name of the Philippines to the Republic of Maharlika, a true Filipino name—the Republic of Erection.

No wonder the Filipinos are multiplying like rats.