Yearning for a classroom language

MANILA, Philippines - Five days from now the academic world will recall the saga of our 109-year-old yearning for a classroom language.

For our rummaging around for an effective medium of instruction dates back from the McKinley Letter of Instruction No. 1 to the Schurman Commission on April 7, 1900, thus:

“It will be the duty of the Commission to promote and extend and, as they find occasion, to improve the system of education already inaugurated by the military authorities. In doing this they should regard as of first importance the extension of a system of primary education which shall be free to all, and which shall tend to fit the people for the duties of citizenship and for the ordinary avocations of a civilized community. This instruction should be given, in the first instance, in every part of the Islands in the Language of the people. In view of the great number of language (sic) spoken by the different tribes, it is especially important to the prosperity of the Islands that a common medium of communication may be established. Especial attention should be at once given to affording full opportunity to all the people of the Islands to acquire the use of the English language.” (Italics mine)

The Philippine Commission

After the adoption of the Philippine Assembly on July 30, 1907, the American-dominated Philippine Commission as the upper house and the Filipino-dominated Philippine Assembly as the lower house, they passed Act No. 74, Section 14 of which ran:

“The English language shall, as soon as practicable, be made the basis of all public school instruction, and soldiers may be detailed as instructors until such time as they may be replaced by trained teachers.”

Not long after, Section 922 of the Administrative Code incorporated the above Section 14 of the Act of the bicameral Congress, so that:

“The English language shall, as soon as practicable, be made the basis of all public school instruction.”

Jones Law of 1916

The Jones Law of 1916 carried in Section 2 (a), paragraph (8), a mandatory provision that the Commonwealth Constitution to be formulated and drafted must specify that:

“(P)rovision shall be made for the establishment and maintenance of an adequate system of public school, primarily conducted in the English language”.

The Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 further forced us to continue the use of English in the classrooms.

That 1934 law was reinvigorated four years ago by the Executive Order of President Arroyo that English should be the medium of instruction in the public and private schools system.

It was hailed by academes, journalists, industrialists, intellectuals, and even the grassroots who strive hard to learn the elegant language of great civilizations, humanities and the arts.

Indeed the EO is a positive re-strengthening renaissance of our 109-year-old yearning for classroom language that shall further enhance our current progress.

For as stated by Rep. Luis R. Villafuerte, a votary advocate of mass education who has authored several bills on the education of the youth, including the bill to use English as a medium of effective instruction:

“English is the language in business and industry. Traders, industrialists, bankers and investors conduct commerce in English”.

“English will remain English for a hundred years more. It is the language of the law in which disputes are resolved in the courtroom based on the law books that are written and published in English; lawmakers legislate in English,” Villafuerte stressed.

Congress Magazine that specializes in legislation, and major broadsheets and other periodicals, are written and published in English.

Villafuerte is indeed right, for English is the language of international diplomacy and foreign relations. The 198 member-countries of the Untied Nations Organizations interact in English.

In the campuses, English, either forced or encouraged, is spoken by the students. Waitresses accept orders even in inadequate and memorized or parrot English.

English as a classroom medium is an elegant language. It has been used by the Celtics, the Saxons, the Anglo-Saxons, the Welsh, the Scots, the Irish, the Englishmen, and the Britons.

From the United Kingdom, English has crossed the vast oceans of the North Sea to the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Indian, Caribbean, and the Pacific.

English is rich in culture, tradition, history, lore, mores, nursery rhymes, and even fanaticism.

Hence we academes now hope that this long saga for a classroom language that started from the first McKinley Instruction 109 years ago should now once and for all settle to stop haunting the condescending, unsettling educators’ mind.

(Writer is an author, professor, historian and GNN television commentator. He taught political history, comparative governments, journalism and international relations at the Central Colleges of the Philippines and Philippine State College of Aeronautics. He is editor of Congress Magazine for the past 17 years now.)