Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the related literature and studies after an in-depth research

done by the researchers. It emphasizes the different topics, concepts, theories, and

philosophies gathered from readings of unpublished materials, journals, and online

sources that are significant to the present study. The facts presented in this section

contribute to the critical analysis of the subject to achieve the validity of the research.

Related Literature

It is important to have a language with a person and a country because it serves as

its identity. Specifically, taking into account, language really reflects the culture of a

certain group of people living in one specific place. Mahilom (2010), it expresses the

direct relation of language and culture. That the language as culture, is a collective ark of

human experience in a specific place and period of its history. That with language, people

will recognize his culture and he will learn to take it and be proud of it. There is a

symbiotic relationship between the language and culture, if there is no culture there might

also have no language to be considered, otherwise, the culture reflects any language and

vice versa.

While in the perspective of Naval (2011), a renowned expert in language and

popular culture, the language serves as the nation’s soul and its signature of

independence. To see the importance and significance of the language, it is effective to

use the dulog deconstruction tool, wherein if the language is lost; the country has no soul,

no life and no sign of independence at all.

 In addition, in an interview to a current professor of Dela Salle University,Asenjo

(2015) mentions that the German Socialist Karl Marx has defined the practice of

practicing consciousness that the language would force the person to make and to create.

In other words, the language pushes each individual to act.

Part of the essay of the National Artist of Arts for Literature, Lumbera (2009)

expresses languages breath, every moment of our life, language is always there just like

our breathing process. It’s a sign that we’re alive, and have the ability to connect with our

fellow users of it. For every need, we use language to get it- if hungry, asking foods; if

injured, groans to be given a cure; if you are lonely, you are looking for a conversation

that can eliminate sorrow.

In this statement of Lumbera (2009), the importance and significance of language

can be seen. The language serves as a tool to express and to communicate the needs of

each other. So with that we can say that language is really a matter of survival.

Meanwhile, the language is essentially associated with literacy especially when it

is considered as an important aspect of the country’s education, politics and economy.

Literacy is not just learning but learning the language in order to make the people in the

society beneficial.

Based on some of the important statistics from the Philippine Basic Education

blog (2013) ,it resulted from the recent National Achievement Test (NAT), common

learning achievement of elementary and secondary education students in the country’s

education system from 2011 to 2013 states that, in 2011, at elementary level; 76.44% is

the average score of the students in Filipino subject while 65.11 % is the average English

score in the same year. From statistics, it can be concluded that the difference between

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the two subjects is very high. Filipino subject has the higher average score of NAT than

in English.

However in the next year (2012), the former 76.44% average score of students in

Filipino subject fell to 69.15% at the elementary level. While the former 65.11 % average

score of students in English subject has slightly increased to 66.27%. In 2013, the former

69.15% average student’s score in Filipino went up to 72.41%. While the previous

66.27% English average score became 67.12 % too.

From the statistics, it can be concluded that the underlying circumstances of

literacy in Filipino subject in Elementary is not stable, increasing-decreasing-increasing,

contradictory to the English Language that the average score of elementary students

continues to rise.

In addition, based to Philippine Basic Education blog (2013), in the third grade’s

NAT of the year 2013, it resulted that Filipino subject has the lower grade in reading and

writing compare to English, wherein 53.38% is the resulted grade in reading and 56.43%

in writing Filipino. On the other hand, in English reading, the students got 57.71%

whilein English writing the students got 62.86%. It simply shows that the English writing

and reading has the higher percentage grade than in Filipino.

Some of the language experts San Juan, Naval, Alimario and Lumbera (2013)

have been unqualified and unaccepted the English language as the medium of instruction

since there is no proper language teaching system existing in the Philippines; it’s seen as

a big problem for Naval. It’s also a mistake for Naval (2013) to study English as a first

language, it should be just a second language for the reason that this is not the mother

tongue language of Filipinos..

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 While the above-mentioned scholars emphasize Alimario (2013) more that the

language is being studied contrary to the ideology of others that it is inappropriate to

study and focus on the Filipino language because it was already given to us as Filipinos.

We should always remember that the language is rooted in culture and the culture is

being studied

According to San Juan (2013) who is also the chairman of the Tanggol Wika , the

result of the NAT in secondary level is very alarming for the language and academic

experts because the NAT results shows that the Students only gained 58.04% as the

average score in Filipino subject in the year 2013 which was higher than the 53.04%

average English score because the scores of the two subjects are closely related to each

other.

The National Achievement Test results are very disturbing because this means

that students have low understanding of Filipino, which in turn, it is expected that the

average score of students in Filipino must be higher because it is the primary medium of

instruction too.

The Filipino language is long, complicated and constantly changing that reflects

its history as mentioned by Almario (2010), a National Artist of the Arts in Literature,

that Filipino has been very different from the Filipino language since its early days. The

history of the Filipino language can be illustrated in a dilemma manner. Because of the

change of administration, it is noted that there were parts of history that neglected the

improvement of the Filipino language and also there were parts that cannot be denied that

traced the protection and concern to the said language.

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 History of the Filipino language is linked to the history of the present Komisyon

sa Wikang Filipino. In an article on the official website of the commission first written by

Añonuevo (2012), he first asked the truth of the filing of “Filipino as the National

Language 1935” with the latest twenty-peso bill that existed in the Philippines.

Añonuevo (2012) argues that these terms are not realistic in the twenty-peso bill.

He has started that no law was passed in 1935 that allowed Filipino to be the formall

national language. By virtue of the 1935Constitution, the Congress “is required to

develop and adopt the general National Language based on one of the existing native

languages.”

At this point of Añonuevo, if on 1935 was mandated only or just prescribed by the

former President Manuel L. Quezon, the Assembly made a clear step without any

institution and/or government agency to administer it. It is also no longer a national

language at this time. But in the year 1937 the Tagalog language was declared the first

language to be the basis of the Philippine National language.

Labor (2016) started in her book “ Isang Sariling Wikang Filipino” that milestone

to be considered is this event that has been the beginning of a long history of the Filipino

Language. In 1959, through Secretary Jose Romero, secretary of the Office of Education

was called “Pilipino the National Language” of the Philippines. The “Pilipino” that was

largely based on Tagalong will turn into “Filipino” in accordance with the 1973

Constitution “ to cultivate, develop and uphold Filipino according to existing native

languages and dialects regardless of the acceptance of the words from foreign

languages..”

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 Labor (2016) also mentioned that after the “victory’ of the EDSA revolution, in

1986, the “Surian ng Wikang Pambansa” joined the drafting of the 1986 Constitution

which was still newly created that time, and in the above constitution, the Filipino

language was identified as the National Language of the Philippines. It is included in the

constitution that the Filipino language should be cultivated, developed and enriched that

it was also recommended that it should be based on the native languages that exist in the

country.

The Article XIV of the 1987 Constitution was specifically stated in respect of the

Philippine National Language:

“SEC.6. The National Language of the Philippines is Filipino. While it is

cultivated, it must be developed and further developed in the existing languages of the

Philippines and in other languages. In accordance with the provisions of the law and in

accordance with what the Congress may be entitled to, the Government shall take

measures to promote and promote its pursuit” The use of Filipino as the medium of

official communication and as a language of instruction in the educational system.”

(Labor,2016)

Some of the executive and/or executive orders implemented in previous

administrations regarding the use of Filipino as a medium of instruction or primary

language at any level in the education sector indicating that the current constitution

prescribes exist. The instructions of the constitution on the development of the Filipino

language was gained but with the provisions of the Executive Order No. 210 which is a

mistreatment in Filipino language as a language of instruction and rather promoting

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English language and use it as a medium of instruction in schools issued in 2003 during

the former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo questioned every Filipino minds.

After ten years, the math repeats the dark history of the Filipino language. The

Commission on Higher Education has issued the CHED Memorandum No. 20 removing

Filipino language and Filipino disciplines at the level of tertiary. The memorandum urges

tension in the academe especially in tertiary. From the scholar’s perspective, it kills the

opportunity of many college educators, a massive loss of employment.

Aside from killing the opportunities and jobs of many college teachers, it is also a

straightforward murder of a long –term improvement of the Filipino language.

Related Studies

Banzon et al. (2015) stated in their study “Ang Estado ng Wikang Filipino” that in

order to measure the skills of students in using Filipino language, an experiment was

conducted. In the above mentioned experiment, it aims is to identify the ability of the

students to give the equivalent Filipino and English names of the pictures shown to the

respondents. The respondents were third-graders in an unnamed school that’s the medium

of instruction are the English language.

The study resulted 90% as the average score of the respondents in English while

77.5 % only in Filipino. It also appeared that all students first answered English rather

than Filipino, Also, 90% of the students knew or first recognize the pictures given to

them in its English language name then suddenly give its Filipino name still.

As an explanation to this, Lumbera (2015) states that this scenario is not

surprising because in the home based environment, students were first and most trained to

speak in English that opposed by some of the experts in the language.

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 While the above- mentioned scholars emphasize Almario more that the language

is being studied contrary to the ideology of others that it is inappropriate to study and

focus on the Filipino language because it was already given to us as Filipinos. We should

always remember that the language is rooted in culture and the culture is being studied.

Filipino is a sensitive issue. From the process of selecting it here as a National

Language up to the present day. As a Filipino who uses the Filipino language, one of

expected from us is to look, preserve and appreciate the Filipino language. If a language

serves as the soul and identity of a country and we let it to be left behind, Filipino

language will suddenly die, with this scenario, we cannot deny that we ourselves also

killed our own souls and devouring ourselves identity. The Filipino language is at risk

now, there is no one who can really save it from harm ,only us the Filipinos. (Banzon et

al., 2015)

Genesee (2009) cited on his study “Home Language: An English Language

Learner’s Most Valuable Resources .” states that the children who are learning to read in

a second language are able to transfer many skills and knowledge from their first

language to facilitate their acquisition of reading skills in the second language. The best

evidence of this comes from studies showing that the students with strong reading skills

in the home language also have strong reading skills in their second language.

As cited by Xia (2013) on her study entitled as “Gender Differences in Using

Language.”, Gender as an analytical category continues to motivate researchers in many

areas. It seen the differences between the use of language of men and women for some

aspects, and we can notice that there are many differences in using language between the

two genders, and also there are some changes through time. We believe that with the

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development of society, there will be fewer differences in the usage of language.

Language, as a tool of human communication, will be improving day by day, and this

needs the effort of both men and women. The changes in the language can show the

improvement in women’s social status.

By the study of Hogain (2012) entitled as “Teaching and Learning Vocabulary:

Putting The Four Strands to the Test”. This study set out put The Four Strands to the test

and observe its effect on a group of high school students. Recently stated, research often

says one thing, but in the classroom finding seem to be ignored. Reports that may new

teachers have no idea which reasons were behind the different teaching strategies they

employed in class: they simply used them because they were taught that this was the way

it should be done. Undeniably, the goal research to improve students’ language

proficiency by the application of findings in the classroom. It is also the responsibility of

every language teacher to know the justification of each and every teaching strategy they

apply in the classroom.

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