Was not able to read the article in full, because it was not available in the web site of Manila Bulletin, and had to really research to grab a copy of it.
Language, learning, identity, privilege*Reprint of Mr. Soriano's article came from the view point of Mr. Tonyo Cruz.
By JAMES SORIANO
August 24, 2011, 4:06am
Ithink
The Manila Bulletin
MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.
My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.
In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.
Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.
We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”
These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.
That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.
It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’
It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.
But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.
Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.
But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.
It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.
So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.
Addicted to the imperialistic colonizers
I agree 100% with every point raised by Mr. James Soriano. His observations and sentiments are the realities of life. I know of some parents whose kids flunk in the Filipino subject at school. This prepared me to make Filipino a strong foundation for my kids' life.
As Filipinos, I want my two children to master the language, for it is ours, and it is beautiful.
Read the poem of Gat Andres Bonifacio about Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa, or listen to F. Landa Jocano or Mike Coroza dish out those old, pure Filipino sentences and you'd be impressed. My 5-year old girl hooted for more kundiman songs when I brought her to a concert.
For story time, we have English and Filipino books. We speak Filipino when we are outside the house, and when we are at home, we practice speaking in English. This is in preparation for Mandarin, which I want my kids to learn too.
Children are intelligent beings. Batibot knows that and that made them successful. Expose them to a new language for two years, and they would be proficient in it. Consistently talk with them in that language and they will flourish in whatever dialect, language you throw them.
Sadly, a lot of Filipino parents choose English as the mother tongue of their children for the exact points that Mr. Soriano raised - we are impressed with the American Dream. We are 'honored' to have Paris Hilton come over the Philippines to design a real estate property, when in the United States, nobody takes her seriously. Deep down, we desire to be the colonizers who abused us and left us thinking low of ourselves.
Proud to be Filipinos
This has got to stop with my kids. I am fortunate enough to come from a poor family. My limited access to imported goods sheltered me to love the Philippines - sickness and all. My husband let go of a lucrative offer to work in the US and start our family there, because he does not want to step over a colleague who is in line for that job.
We pay our taxes diligently. We obey the traffic rules. We pray for our leaders. We segregate our waste. We buy Pinoy products. We mold our kids to love and live excellently for the Philippines. We dream that we will live to see that day, with the America going lower and lower, when the Philippines will be a positive contribution to the world - not just cheap source of manpower.
Long way to go
Though it is a lot of work and a long time a coming, every day is a step closer to that.
The parents' goal is to help their kids find out that niche they are meant to fill, conquer. The soonest they discover it, the better for all of us.
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| A monster, where? |
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