Language commission alarmed at phaseout of Filipino departments

MANILA, Philippines — The Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) has expressed alarm that some colleges and universities have removed their Filipino departments.

KWF president Virgilio Almario said there are more than 10 universities and colleges, including private educational facilities all over the country, that have dismantled their Filipino departments.

Almario said some administrators of these colleges and universities betrayed their preference for English and dismantled the Filipino departments.  

He admitted that the decision of some educational institutions to abolish their Filipino departments is “alarming” as this indicates killing the language.

“If you dismantle your Filipino department, this means that you want to kill the teaching of Filipino,” he said.

Almario expressed belief there is still a demand for Filipino teachers, especially in some parts of the Visayas and Mindanao.

“The problem is that they lack Filipino teachers. Maybe about a third of Filipino teachers in Mindanao did not major in Filipino,” he said.

He said some of these educational institutions must have based their move to scrap their Filipino departments on a Supreme Court (SC) ruling that cited a memorandum of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

In the memorandum, CHED said that Filipino and Panitikan (Philippine Literature) are no longer core subjects.

Almario, who was named National Artist for Literature in 2003, said these educational institutions might have misread the SC ruling.

The SC, in its April 29 resolution, explained that the memorandum only provides the minimum standards for the general education component of all degree programs.

“It does not limit the academic freedom of universities and colleges to require additional courses in Filipino, Panitikan and the Constitution in their respective curricula,” the SC said. 

KWF director general Anna Katarina Rodriguez said the CHED believed that there was a need to change the curriculum in the tertiary level because of the changes brought about by the K-12 educational program. 

Almario said they are appealing to all colleges and universities, as educational instruments in fulfilling the mandates of the Constitution, to be the model and vanguard in the propagation of the language provision. 

The KWF appealed to writers, publishers and teachers of technical or scientific subjects such as mathematics, engineering and economics to keep the Filipino language alive and explore their linguistic capabilities.

It suggested that they could embark on writing projects for books and textbooks in Filipino, as well as translations into Filipino.