Ang sama ng loob ko sa mga guro ko sa Filipino noong high school

Published August 5, 2015 5:50pm

By JOSELITO D. DELOS REYES
Sa guro ko sa Filipino sa Valenzuela Municipal High School Polo Annex noong dekada nobenta nakaranas
akong ipahiya sa klase dahil sa maling nagawa ko sa kaniyang proyektong scrapbook (“Nagawa ko” hindi
“ginawa ko.” Magkaibang hayop ang dalawang iyan). Sa isa pang guro ko din sa Filipino sa parehong paaralan
naranasan kong pilit ipahanap sa akin—walang biro!—ang “aral” sa tulang “Ako ang Daigdig” ni Alejandro G.
Abadilla na nakalathala sa aming aklat. Ang masakit, natuklasan kong sinanay sila para maging guro sa PEHM
pero pinagturo ng Filipino sa pampublikong paaralan.

Hindi ko gustong magtunog alingangaw ang artikulo kong ito hinggil sa napapanahong usapin ng Buwan ng
Wika at pagtatanggal ng sabjek na Filipino sa kolehiyo. Marami nang nagsalita. Ang ingay-ingay na sa social
media at mainstream media. Ang huli nga ay nang lamanin ng editoryal ng isang nilumang pahayagan ang
tungkol sa kung bakit daw sa Filipino/Tagalog ipinahahayag ng ating Pangulo ang kaniyang State of the Nation
Address. Lumabas noong Agosto 1 ang editoryal ng pahayagang nasusulat sa wikang banyaga. Hindi raw nila
alam kung ano ang dahilan. Kaya heto, gusto ko lang magsalita kahit papaano.

Ang paniniwala ko, at paninindigan ko (gaano man kalambot ang tindig kong ito), kailangan ng sabjek na
Filipino sa Kolehiyo pagdating ng 2016. Hindi ko alam kung 3-unit course. Pwede ring 6 o 9 o 12. Basta dapat
meron.

Gusto ko ang sabjek na Filipino na kaugnay ng usapin ng wika sa media, sa mas malawak na sakop ng araling
kultural. Pwede ring kaugnay sa Kulturang Popular. Mahalagang aralin ng sinumang nasa kolehiyo ang ugnayan
ng wika at media, o wika at advertisement. Kung gusto ng mas tiyak, wika sa noontime show, wika sa tabloyd,
wika sa radyo. O kung gusto pa ng mas tiyak at ispesyalisado: idiolect ng Tulfo brothers. O ni Kris. Palalimin
ang pag-unawa ng mag-aaral sa kolehiyo hinggil sa wika sa eryang ito pati na ang kaugnay na usaping
pangkultura.

Naniniwala akong kritikal ang pag-aaral ng wika kung ilalapat sa kulturang popular lalo’t pag-aaralan ng mag-
aaral na bukod sa mas may edad at inaasahang maturity, ay mas kakawing ng kanilang pinagkakadalubhasaan.
Oo, lahat ng posible nilang pagkadalubhasaan sa kolehiyo ay marapat bigyan ng ugnay sa usapin ng wika at
media, wika at Kulturang Popular.

Lubhang maimpluwensiya ang media ngunit hindi napagtutuunan ng pansin ang kanilang wikang ginagamit:
ang politika nito halimbawa at ang implikasyon sa mga mag-aaral na hinuhubog hindi lamang para maging
technician (no offense sa mga technician, ang ibig ko talagang sabihin ay ang robotikong paraan ng
pamahalaang ito sa paghubog ng mga mag-aaral sa mga darating na taon sa ilalim ng sumpa ng K-12, robotiko,
mekanikal, hindi kritikal).

Natatakot kasi akong dumating ang panahon (o baka nga dumating na) na ang isang laos na host ng game show
o isang huklubang pantanghaling palabas ay ituring na tagapagligtas ng sambayanan dahil sa saya at
“inspirasyong” dulot ng makatunghay ng yumayaman. Kung hindi man panandaliang pagtakas sa kahirapan. Na
lahat ay maghahangad mabigyan ng jacket kapag may nagawang nakatatawa o nakahihiya sa harap ng live
camera; na baka dumating ang panahon na ang benchmark ng katalinuhan ay ang makatugon na lamang sa mga
tanong na nasasagot ng oo-hindi-pwede. Na ang sagot sa gutom ay mabetsing instant noodles at hindi ka
maganda kung hindi ka maputi.

Pag-aralan ang mga ito at simulan natin sa wikang kanilang ginagamit at gagamitin. Kung paano inilalapat sa
kultura at media. Naniniwala akong mula dito sa pagsusuring ito, sa sabjek na ito, mas magiging kritikal ang
mag-aaral sa boladas ng mga politiko. Mas kakabahan na ang mga action-star na politiko kapag kumanta sa
privilege speech. O umiyak sa harap ng camera nang humihingi ng paumanhin dahil daw mababaw ang
kaniyang luha.
Pero long shot ang sapantaha kong ito. Mainit ang debate pero mukhang may desisyon na. Ang sakit. Pero may
bahagi ng utak ko na nagsasabing “totoo, hindi naman kasi naging masigasig ang lahat ng guro sa Filipino sa
kolehiyo na itaas ang antas ng pag-aaral tungo sa intelektwalisasyon ng wika sa pamamagitan ng pananaliksik
halimbawa.” Maraming naging komportable sa kanilang tindig bilang guro sa Filipinong nagpapaliwanag ng
pares-minimal at diptonggo. Maraming ginawang comfort-zone ang “pagtuturo” ng Filipino.

Noong nasa kolehiyo ako sa Pamantasang Normal ng Pilipinas, pinatula akong pilit. At humigit kumulang,
naulit ang leksyon namin sa high school dangan nga lamang, nagpakadalubhasa na sa Filipino ang nagturo sa
akin. Hindi na sa PEHM.

Ang ibig kong sabihin, noon pa man, parang inihahanda na ng sistema ang pagsasawalang-bahala sa Filipino.
At ang masakit palagay ko, kasabwat dito ang mismong “guro” sa Filipino para lumayo lalo ang loob ng mag-
aaral sa sabjek na ito, para mawalan ng halaga ang sabjek na ito sa mga namamalakad ng sistema.

Nang magturo ako ng Filipino sa tatlong paaralan: Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Valenzuela, Southern Luzon
State University, at Unibersidad ng Santo Tomas, isa lamang ang naging gabay ko sa tuwing haharap sa klase:
hindi ko dapat gayahin ang mga naunang guro ko sa Filipino noong high school at kolehiyo. Dapat maunawaan
ng aking mag-aaral na malaki ang ambag ng sabjek na ito sa kanilang buhay, propesyonal man o personal.
Ipinaunawa ko ang kapangyarihan ng wika higit sa pagsasaulo ng mga tinamaan-ng-magaling na batas kung
paano umiral ang Wikang Pambansa.

Nagsaliksik sila batay sa kanilang pinagkakadalubhasaan gamit ang Filipino; nakipag-ugnayan sila sa labas ng
akademiya at pinag-aralan namin kung paano ginagamit ang wika batay sa iba’t ibang larangan at industriya:
tindero ng kwek-kwek sa Recto, may-ari ng Funeraria sa Araneta, tindero ng gulong at mag wheels sa
Blumentritt, traffic aide sa España, at marami pang iba. Pero kulang pa ang lahat ng ito kung isisiksik sa 6-unit
na batayang kurso sa Filipino na napipintong tanggalin sa kolehiyo.

Hindi kailangang mawala ang sabjek na Filipino sa kolehiyo. Pero pwede ba, huwag din naman sanang
tuntungan na lamang ito ng komportableng “trabaho” bilang guro kung sakaling mareresolbahan, ulk, ang
pagbabalik nito. Kung naging mas agresibo sana noon pa man ang pagtuturo ng Filipino sa lahat ng antas, kung
umaakma sana lagi ang Filipino sa pangangailangan ng panahon, kung hindi sana “nakahon” ang sabjek na ito,
baka hindi umabot sa ganitong sitwasyong ang nagdedesisyon para sa tunguhin ng sabjek na ito ay nakatunghay
sa malayo at mataas na kawalan.

Bukod sa titser ng Panitikan, Malikhaing Pagsulat, at Kulturang Popular sa UST, Writing Fellow din si
Joselito D. Delos Reyes sa UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies. Siya rin ang awtor ng mga
aklat na Paubaya at iSTATUS NATION. Kasapi siya ng Museo Valenzuela Foundation at Lucban Historical
Society. Kasalukuyan niyang tinatapos ang kaniyang disertasyon para makamit ang Ph. D. Philippine Studies
mula sa De La Salle University. Ang sanaysay na ito ay bahagi ng kaniyang pinakabagong aklat na Titser
Pangkalawakan.

Siya ang recipient ng 2013 NCCA Writers’ Prize para sa maikling kuwento at ng 2013 Makata ng Taon ng
Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.
Language, learning, identity, privilege

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.

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.
ADVERTISEMENT
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.
(Soriano is a senior BS Management student at Ateneo de Manila University. He has a weekly column, Ithink,
in the Students & Campuses section of Manila Bulletin.)

How my sons lost their Tagalog, Sulat kay James Soriano

By: Benjamin Pimentel - @inquirerdotnet
11:30 PM August 31, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO—My wife and I decided early on that Tagalog was going to be our sons’ first language.
It wasn’t easy.
In his first days in pre-school, our first-born was miserable, intimidated by a world in which pretty much
everyone spoke English.
But his pediatrician said not to worry about it. Experts said not to worry about it. They even said that it’s good
for kids to be exposed to many languages, that they, eventually, will adjust and adapt.

And my son did.

It didn’t take long for Paolo to be fluent in English, although he later, sadly, lost his Tagalog.
His younger brother grew up with a kuya who spoke to him in English. They had some funny moments. Anton
would struggle to tell his big brother, “Eh kuya, I just ano.. uh.. because … maglaro naman tayo.”

But like his kuya, it didn’t take long for Anton to shift from Pilipino to English. And sadly, he, too, lost his
Tagalog.
Well, they didn’t actually “lose” it.
It’s still there. They can understand, but would not speak it.
But the spirit of my Mother Tongue is still part of them. I hope someday that they get a chance to use it again, to
be immersed once again in that world. It’ll be up to them.
Which brings me to James Soriano, the Ateneo senior, whose essay on his own struggles with English and
Pilipino sparked a heated controversy, especially on the Web.
Now, this may surprise many, but I’m glad he wrote that essay. It inspired me to write him a letter.
—
Dear James,
Unang una, maraming salamat.
Mabigat ang dating ng sinulat mo. At alam kong bugbog ka ngayon sa mga puna at batikos.
Pero dahil sa iyo, nagkaroon ng debate. Dahil sa ‘yo, pinag-uusapan, pinag-iisipan ang papel ng wika sa buhay
natin, sa bayan natin, lalo na ng mga kabataang tulad mo.
Ipagtatanggol ko ang karapatan mong sabihin ang sinabi mo. Salubungin mo lang yong mga puna, ‘yong mga
ideyang kontra sa mga pananaw mo. Kung hindi mo tanggap, okay lang. Pero harapin mo pa rin.
Ganyan naman tayo umuunlad at natututo.
Ngayon, tungkol doon sa sinabi mo na Pilipino “is not the language of the learned” — sakit mo namang
magsalit p’re.
Ngayon, tungkol doon sa sinabi mo na Pilipino “is not the language of the learned” — sakit mo namang
magsalit p’re.
+++
Do you really believe the implied equations in what you wrote?
English = Classy, smart people.
Pilipino = Stupid, lowbrow, very emotional people.
For I can share with you several instances when knowing just English (and Pilipino) really made me feel un-
learned.
One was when I was in Cotabato in the late 1980s as a reporter covering the Lumads, the tribal Filipinos
struggling against militarization and social injustice. I don’t speak Cebuano. They didn’t speak English or
Pilipino.
We needed help.
And that help came from an unexpected source—a kind-hearted Italian priest named Father Peter Geremia,
who spoke Italian, English, and Cebuano. (I’m guessing he also speaks Tagalog since he had lived in Manila
where he got involved in the protests against the Marcos dictatorship in the 1970s.)
It was one of the oddest interviews in my career as a journalist.
Here was this white dude from Europe helping me understand and communicate with my own people. He knew
their language. I didn’t. My grasp of English couldn’t bridge that gap.
Father Peter was the learned one. Not me.
+++
Sabi mo, “Filipino is like 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.”
Pag nagkita tayo, Tagalugin mo ako. Kasi, bagamat ang hanap buhay ko sa Amerika e nakabatay sa kakayanan
kong umingles, kasama ng buhay ko dito ang paghugas ng pinggan.
Oo, may dishwasher sa bahay namin. Pero, alam mo, pag mga malalaking kaldero ang katapat, puno ng mga
latak ng mantika at tirang ulam, kinukuskos ko nang husto ‘yon, p’re.
—
Obviously, many got upset because of what they felt was your stunningly condescending view of those who
speak Pilipino.
Well, I must confess, I also once had an intense bias against another language: Spanish.
You see, when Filipinos of my generation were in college, we had to learn Spanish, four semesters of it.
We hated it. We thought it was useless. We were offended that we had to learn the language of the
conquistador, of the Padre Damasos and Padre Salvis. Of the conio kids!

Then I moved to California.

Boy, do I regret not taking those Spanish courses seriously.
For Spanish may have been the language of the hoity toity back home. But in California, it’s the language of
middle class and working class people, of immigrants like me. Many of them may seem like the people you
somewhat derisively referred to in your essay as the tinderos and the katulongs.
As a journalism student, I had to run around the U.S.- Mexico border and came face-to-face with poor Mexicans
and Central Americans in Tijuana and Mexicali.
How I wished I could speak really fluent Spanish then.
As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle I was assigned to cover immigration and affirmative action, which
took me to Latino neighborhoods all over the Bay Area.
How I tried to find the Spanish-speaking me.
But there was no such person. There was only English. And English couldn’t help me out. Knowing English
didn’t make me feel learned.
—
Binigo rin ako ng Ingles noong unang pagtatangka kong sumulat ng nobela.
Sa Ingles ko unang sinubukang buuin ang “Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street.” Sa San Francisco ang setting, kaya,
siyempre, inisip kong dapat Ingglisin.
Pero ayaw makisama ng mga tauhan. Iyong mga beteranong nakatambay sa may cable car stop sa San
Francisco, ayaw umingles. Kahit anong gawin ko, hindi umuusad ang kuwento.
Para bagang sinasabi ng mga matatanda, ‘E bakit mo ba kami pinag Iingles Boying, e mga Pilipino kami.’
Kaya kumambyo ako. Sinulat ko sa Pilipino. Saka umarangkada ang kuwento. Nabuhay ang mga tauhan.
Sarap ng pakiramdam.
—
You want to know why I wanted our children to learn Tagalog? Because when I moved to the U.S., I met many
young Filipino Americans who were disappointed, a few were even angry, that their parents didn’t teach them
Pilipino, didn’t expose them to Filipino culture.
It’s really strange, in a way.
Here you are declaring that Pilipino is “not the language of the learned … not the language of privilege.”
But here where I live now, thousands of miles from our homeland, young Filipino Americans yearn for the
privilege of speaking that language, are searching for ways to embrace Pilipino.
They take Tagalog lessons, even learn the Baybayin, the original Tagalog script. They even have Baybayin
script tattooed on their bodies.
Joey Ayala, the folk singer who lived in Berkely for a time, put it best when he told me, “Things that are
distinctly Filipino are often more valuable to Filipino Americans. Filipinos in the Philippines look to the
American dream. Filipinos in the United States have the Philippine dream.”
—
You caused quite a stir with what you wrote, James. I’m sure you’re still reeling from the criticisms.
But like I said, I’ll defend your right to express your views, even if I disagree with many of them.
That’s how we learn, after all. I’m guessing your views may still evolve, grow wings, take flight.
I actually see the backlash as a good sign. It tells me that young people feel strongly about these issues, about
language, culture and society. (I don’t get Jejemon, but hey, that’s part of the debate, of the process of finding
answers.)
And it’s important to remember that culture and language are not static. They change.
Consider some of the big changes over the past 20 years.
When I was growing up in Manila, pretty much all the TV newscasts were in English. When I was growing up,
we got fined for speaking in Tagalog on campus. Five centavos a word!
Well, okay, I hear that still happens in some schools. But I also hear there’s a congressional bill trying to put an
end to that silly practice. Progress!
Even my eldest son’s attitude toward his first language has been changing. He used to tell me that he really
didn’t want to speak Tagalog anymore, “Because it’s not cool, Tatay.”
Well, when the Black Eyed Peas’ Apl de Ap’s ‘’Apple Song’’ and ‘’Bebot’’ became hits, that changed.
Suddenly, Tagalog was “cool.”
And during our last visit to Manila, he even realized the value of his Tagalog-speaking self when he witnessed a
street fight in Ermita.
“I understood what they were saying, Tatay,” he said. “One was saying, ‘That’s mine. ‘Akin yan.’”
I imagine that he could very well have been talking about his Tagalog.
For while it’s buried within him, it’s still his. It’s still there.
Nandoon pa rin.

Practicing Filipino
“CR (comfort room) breaks” can be useful for hatching new ideas during a class.
I had excused myself for such a break from a graduate class in linguistic anthropology last Wednesday, and as
such breaks go I sprinted to the CR but did more of a brisk walk on the way back. Because the class had been
talking about language and national identity, my attention was caught by a sticker on the CR door: “Stop fascist
violence against national minorities.”

There were more stickers and signs down the corridor, including on several classroom doors with the posting.
“No Food or Drinks Allowed Inside the Classroom.”
I was smiling because all the signs were in English except for two very old ones: “Masamang manigarilyo” (It’s
bad to smoke) and “Bawal mag-ingay” (It is forbidden to be noisy).
Note the irony of the “Stop fascist violence” sticker posted by nationalist groups. When I got back to class we
talked about how, at the University of the Philippines, our student activists still chant, “Junk commercialization”
and many other “junks” (at one time mysteriously pronounced as “jonk”), while in the Philippine Normal
University, one of my graduate students proudly points out that they shout “Ibasura” instead.
Yet, UP has gained such a reputation for the use of Filipino that it has cast fear in the hearts of
many burgis (upper-class) Filipino parents who raise their children with English as the mother tongue. Parts of
UPCAT (the UP College Admissions Test) are in Filipino, and are said to have affected the overall performance
of many private high school graduates. Then parents often ask me—almost in a whisper—how true it is that all
lectures are in Filipino and that students have to submit all essays and papers in Filipino. They’re relieved when
I say it’s not true, but I add, mischievously, “unfortunately.”

Schizo
We in UP are, like the rest of the country, quite schizophrenic when it comes to a national language. We
proclaim Filipino as our national language, and declare it part of nationalism to use that language. But in
practice, we waver, we waffle. Our nationalism is reduced to quibbling, for example, about whether the national
language is Filipino or Pilipino.
Let me explain that last sentence. I still get irate e-mails from some readers who ask why I call the national
language Filipino. “We are Filipinos and our national language is Pilipino” is the typical refrain, but I know
those e-mails are from people my age. (I’m 64, as my new photo shows—look to the right. If you’re reading a
print copy of the Inquirer, look to your left and see how much younger Ambeth Ocampo looks. Grumble,
grumble.)
Yes, older Filipinos were raised on this “Filipinos are the people and Pilipino is the language,” but today,
officially, it is now “We are Filipinos and our national language is Filipino.” It’s part of our schizophrenia: We
quarrel over the right words but hey, notice that we’re slugging it out in English.

Now, if only we could be more consistent and use our national language, we could then say, “Tayo ay Pilipino
at ang pambansang wika natin ay Pilipino,” although the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino suggests that even when
we speak in Filipino, the national language should be referred to as Filipino.
‘Bibingka’ or pudding
When it comes to languages, the proof of the bibingka is still in the eating. There, that’s the Filipino, however
schizo, in me that’s beginning to rebel when I want to communicate to a larger Filipino audience, and bibingka
comes through better than pudding.
Eating is a metaphor for practice. What is the practice out there? Filipino, the language, is widely used, with
many changes going on: new words, old words mutating, borrowed words, and more.
When we had the national minorities visiting UP Diliman for two weeks, they delivered hundreds of speeches
and class lectures, speaking of land as life, of their alternative schools, of their dreams for their children—all in
fluent Filipino tinged ever so slightly by regional accents.
And while many Cebuanos will rail against “Tagalog imperialism,” many will use Filipino, and with an
eloquence surpassing that of Tagalogs.
It’s happening, this practice of Filipino, and it took a fruit vendor to remind me about that. Years after I started
buying fruits from her, she asked one day if I was writing a column in the Inquirer. And when I said yes, she
laughed and said in Filipino: “I wouldn’t have known if I wasn’t wrapping fruits with the Inquirer pages and
suddenly saw your photo and column.” She said she read the column but couldn’t understand it, so I must be a
pretty good writer.
So we have two language worlds, disconnected.
And we are not seeing enough of the nudging, coaxing, yes, even pushing, from formal institutions to connect
the worlds.
The bibingka/pudding metaphor simply means: We have to go beyond the rhetoric of language and
nationalism—abstract ideologizing—and translate that rhetoric into policies and practices.

Look at our schools: We still have several who have “English Only” policies, but none with a “Filipino Only”
policy, not even UP. One of my graduate students shared a story about taking the government teaching
licensure exam in a private school and returning to check for exam results. When she asked the guard, in
Filipino, where the results were posted, he refused to answer and pointed to a sign at the entrance declaring the
school as an English-only campus.
I was a product of a school where we were punished for not speaking in English. It has worsened now, it seems,
with schools even expelling students for not using English.
Mind you, I would oppose UP becoming a “Filipino Only” campus. Linguistic diversity is important and must
be respected. But it should not be at the cost of privileging one over the other, and the current situation involves
English being privileged over local languages.
If we want a national language, and respect for all our Philippine languages, our young must grow up hearing
and using these languages as part of daily practice—not just for casual conversations but as the language of
transaction for science, business, the arts. It must be a daily practice that becomes part of us, part of the way we
think, and live.