One lousy argument for Filipino as MOI in college

SABBATICAL NOTES. 27 JUNE 2014. FRIDAY. N2. 
One lousy argument for the continued use of Filipino as MOI in college: the loss of jobs.

Okey, let us be clear on the recent position of these people: the use of Filipino in the teaching of 9 general education courses. 

In a country that is by its very nature linguistically diverse, the mandating of one 'language' as the medium of instruction effectively excludes the others.

Whatever is the justification--one of these is the 'intellectualization' of Filipino--this position of these people is outrightly missing the point: you mandate one 'language', you effectively marginalize the others.

Presuming that the schizophrenic Filipino language (what is it, really, except that it has been, by the force of a hocus-pocus renamed as such?) is the national language, there is no justification to have it imposed in tertiary education, even under the guise that this is 'merely' an medium of instructio, and even under the guise of having it intellectualized when there is not an equal chance given to other other--and 'othered'--Philippine languages.

Fair is fair.

Let us not kid ourselves: we have here a case in which the medium is the message.

You want to future citizens to be of serve to their own people, teach them their own language, teach them their own culture, imbue in them their sense of community, and make their tertiary education an occasion for a synthesis of their knowledge and skills and values so that they can eventually bring these to their own communities.

You want the future citizens to appreciate other peoples, communities, nations, and countries, teach them these things, expose them to these other realities that are otherwise inaccessible to them.

You want to make them adept in international relations and in the affairs of others, show them the world, and not only the limited world of the 'national language'.

You make them understand the world more fully in the round, make them use the language that they are most competent with, more adept in, and more at home in.

It is high time that we really go glocal--local and yet global.

We fail in this, we fail in our mission in tertiary education.

The argument that more than 10,000 instructors of Filipino will lose their jobs and that there is the need to continue the use of Filipino as MOI because of this is a lousy argument for another kind of tertiary education hijacked by interest groups.

The teaching of these 9 credits of GE is not by way of knowledge of the Filipino 'language' and thus, the proponents of making that 'language' as MOI commits a fallacy.

That position equates knowledge of the 'language' and the knowledge of the 'content' in these 9 credits of GE.

Which is not necessarily the case.

We are in a bind here in the same way we were in a bind in the abolition of 12 credits of Spanish as mandatory in college.

And yet we have to resolve the issue.

Is the interest of these 10,000 teachers more important than the interest--and the future--of millions of students in college who will be affected by this scenario?

FELIPENAS/