There are no natural-born Filipino speakers

There is a public consultation or hearing conducted today by the Commission on Higher Education who wants to add more mandatory units of the so-called Filipino language into the new General Curriculum. My readers know too well that we are against one ethnic group, imposing its language upon us because this is not what true freedom is all about. It is no different from what our foreign colonizers did to us.         

Not many people, including many Cebuanos realize that Filipino is an invented language because this is the term that the ultra-nationalists are using to hide the real truth that they are actually going to teach us the Tagalog language because the Filipino Language that we read today is taken 99.9% taken from the Tagalog language. Now the pro-Tagalog ultra nationalists want Tagalog to be taught in higher education too? Yes, in college!

My dear friend, Dr. Jose "Pepe" Abueva emailed me a copy of an article he wrote that appeared in The Bohol Chronicle last July 6, 2014 entitled "A Boholano's View by Jose "Pepe" Abueva on Hard Issues on National Language. He pointed out that the 1987 Constitution requires in "Art.XIV. Sec. 5. (2)" Academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning." Dr. Abueva added, "It is also our citizen's civil rights to have the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press; and to use our indigenous and regional languages as we please. The imposition of language instruction is not part of CHED's power."

I dare say that no one is really a natural-born Filipino speaker, because this language was merely decided upon by the framers of the 1935 Constitution. We are either born as a Cebuano, a Tagalog, Waray, Ilonggo, Bicolano, Kampangpangan, Ilocano or Tausug. The problem lies upon the historic fact that the people from Luzon always envisioned a Republika ng Tagalogan and these people who call themselves as nationalists wanted the rest of the Philippines to speak the Tagalog tongue.

But since many people living in this archipelago were not amused that we should all learn the Tagalog language, they then disguised it as the Filipino language. Some years back, during a language workshop, I chanced upon some of those ultra-nationalists who insisted that all the spoken languages in the Philippines was being mixed into one language called Filipino.

So I told them if they had a word for "husband" in Filipino or in Tagalog? The person could not answer me straight because he knew that the word for husband and wife in the Tagalog language was and has always been "asawa." So this brought me to ask the fellow, why aren't you using "bana" the Cebuano word for husband? He had no answers.

This is our proof that the Filipino language is not evolving as promised by those ultra-nationalists simply because of their refusal to use Cebuano words to mix in the Filipino language more so that they did not have a word for husband. But frankly speaking, the Tagalog language today is evolving into the English language. Thanks to ABS-CBN's Talkshow hosts like Ms. Kris Aquino who uses Taglish as her language. A clear example is when she says, "Now na!"

Why should language be very important for our higher education? This is because we go to school to learn things that we can use in the future when we are looking for work. So now ask yourself if you are so smart and you get to be a valedictorian in Tagalog, ask yourself again if you can find a job based on the ability to speak in Tagalog? I doubt it!

Just a yesterday, ABS-CBN news came up with the story, "Why Cebu is among PH's fastest growing property markets." The report said "Cebu remains to be among the top business process outsourcing destinations for BPO firms in the world. In the 2014 ranking in investment advisory firm Tholons, Cebu City placed 8th among the top global destination for BPO firms. Tholons has placed Manila as number 2 in the rankings while Cebu ranked number 8 against a field of cities from India.

So let us go straight for the jugular. Ask those nationalists promoting the Tagalog language to apply either in Manila or in Cebu in any BPO firm bringing with them only qualification that they can speak Tagalog and let us see if they can land a job! BPOs hire only speakers of English.

This is why we are against CHED forcing Filipinos to learn in college because it would not only diminish their grades, you can actually learn to speak Tagalog because of ABS-CBN or GMA-7's national TV news. More importantly, what we need are graduates who can immediately land a job and there is a lot of jobs out there in the BPO job market where the ability to speak good English is a necessity. Learning Tagalog is a useless exercise and a waste of time because no one is hiring Tagalog-speakers in the BPO world.

*  *  *

Email: [email protected] [email protected]