“Bakit nga ba we are like this?

In our last meeting, we talked about different cultures and how they affected and
influenced us as individuals. How we became diverse, or how we end up disregarding
our “Original” culture.

First of all, let me be straight to the point. Nowadays we all know that the english
language is now obviously a standard of social status or class, a lot of people would
even make fun of filipinos when they talk in english more than in tagalog because they
view it as “Maarte” or too “Sosyal”, also in schools, a lot of students would often want to
be grouped with a student who can express themselves in english very well because for
youngsters, they think being fluent or being able to speak in english makes you smart
since you can express yourself very well in a different language. Another is that if you
can see people on social media, when filipinos get stuck in a situation or entered an
argument, even if they are not very fluent or even if they don’t know how to speak
english with proper grammar or even if they go off the topic with their words, they use
english to sound more intimidating, or more knowledgeable than the other person.

And with these claims or rather belief in the power of the English language it becomes
overrated. Meaning a lot of people not only filipinos, but even other countries would
rather learn and speak english than their mother tongue, because just like what other
people say/the common stereotype of people when it comes to the english language is
that, if you can speak in english you are well educated, you are rich, or boujee and living
in the philippines i can already see it, people would respect people who can speak in
english more than filipinos who speaks in tagalog in normal conversations, and not just
that, since most of filipinos can already understand and speak english, they now begin
to also copy their culture or ways, they try to normalize things that foreigners do and
would cause a huge clash between other filipinos who would disagree. Not that it is bad,
but if you observe. We learn most of our stands right now from foreigners, such as BLM,
the LGBTQIA+ Rights, freedom of attire, and many more, these stands are a must but
when you talk about culture we basically got these ideas from foreigners and also pass
them to our culture, with the way koreans and american dress’ up we also try to dress
up like them and act like them making "others" to decolonize themselves, and lean more
towards other cultures.

When it comes to the conyo language, i already understand because i too talk like that
sometimes, especially when i'm around my friends who also talk like that, it is like an
adapting mechanism for us. If it's hot we’ll try to take a shower or turn on the fan
because that is what everybody does on hot days, when it is rainy we drink coffee or
sleep because that is what most people do on rainy days and that is what we also see
around us and on social media. It is also the same when it comes to language, the more
you hear it around you or see it around you the more it becomes a natural thing for you,
thus you also absorb it. When you are around people who speaks tagalog you will learn
tagalog and speak it very often, when you are around people who speaks english you
will also learn to speak english also just like when you go to the province, example
batangas, when you come back to manila a lot of people would notice that you
absorbed a slight accent from batangas. And with the way foreigners colonized and is
continually influencing us, it is not uncommon for people to also inherit or absorb their
language, culture and sometimes even perspectives.

For me, the most powerful learning moment is knowing where it all started, and how
being conyo is just an effect of us adapting to what is trending or on what makes us
different from others, what explains our “social class”, our “knowledge” which is kinda
funny because intelligence and social class aren’t just based from your language skill
but it is true that nowadays english became one of the standards of knowledge and
social class.

And i realized that this “de-colonization” of Filipinos and other foreigners to themselves
might be a phase, just like in the past, when you know how to speak in Spanish or in
Latin fluently you are a rich person, you are well educated and smart. I realized that we
do not actually de-colonize ourselves, we are just simply following the new trend that is
happening.