In addition, Madrunio (2003) said that due to language expansion, English

spreads and inevitable changes are bound to occur. He also insisted that

grammar and lexis maybe affected but the standards of intelligibility are not

sacrificed.

As Prator (cited in Kachru, 1976) says: “The problem is not necessarily

one of the intelligibility between the speakers of the native varieties of English

and the non-native varieties of English. Rather, the one is of recognizing that

there is a cline in intelligibility among the members of the speech community who

speak in different varieties.” He argues that in the case of non-native speakers

(like in the Philippines), the higher the person is on the cline of bilingualism, the

higher intelligibility s/he attains with a person of identical background and

education.

McArthur (1998) went on to say that Philippine English is currently

competing in certain domains with the rapidly spreading in developing Filipino,

which is in a process of register-building sometimes called intellectualization.

Filipino is not fully developed for academic discourse, especially in the sciences,

and there is an ongoing debate on the use of Filipino instead of English for

school work and official purposes. There is also conflict between the learning of

Filipino for symbolic purposes and the learning of English utilitarian, largely

economic purposes. The two official languages are propagated through a

bilingual education scheme begun in 1974: mathematics and science continue to

be taught in English although it is envisaged that when possible the teaching of

these subjects at certain grade levels shall be in Filipino. The print media are

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dominated by English, but television, radio, and local movies are dominated by

Filipino.

Furthermore, McArthur (1998) stated that English in the Philippines shares

patterns of development and constriction with English in Malaysia. From a

situation similar to that of Singapore, where a premium is placed on learning

English and using it extensively, the Philippines has now moved on to a stage at

which English is used only in such domains has academic discourse and

international relations. Philippine English has developed a vigorous literature. It is

in the process of standardization, with a variety no longer marked by regional

accents associated with regional languages, but a converging variety that

originates in Manila. This form is propagated largely through the school system,

the mass media, and tourism. Because of code-switching, it seems unlikely that a

colloquial variety of English alone will develop. The future is open, without clear

trends. On the one hand, the need for international relations, the dominance of

the print media, and the continued use of English in education may exercise a

standardizing role, making it possible for the Philippine variety to be mutually-

intelligible with other varieties of English. It is also possible that the present

system of bilingual education willbe converted into a purely monolingual Filipino

scheme in which English is taught as a foreign language and becomes available

only to an élite.

Kachru (1997) claimed the Sociolinguistics of Philippine English as a

Legitimate Indigenized Variety of English. He grouped these varieties of English

by means of three concentric circles. Inner circle is represented by the US,

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Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, where English is used primarily as

first language. Outer Circle groups together countries such as the Philippines,

Singapore, India, Malaysia, and Pakistan, where English functions primarily as

an Institutionalized additional language.Expanding Circle counts as members

Japan, China, South Korea, and Indonesia, among others, where English is used

primarily as a foreign language.

Bautista (2004) pointed out that Philippine English is a linguistic resource

of subtractive bilingualism which refers to the acquiring of a second language

that interferes with the acquiring of a first language. Subtractive bilingualism is

also believed to be evidence of transitional bilingualism where Filipino replaced

or interfered with English, the “societally dominant language” in the Philippines

(Lambert, 1978).