The 'de facto' argument in favor of the schizophrenic Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino language and at the expense of the other 180 Philippine languages.

SABBATICAL NOTES. 6 JULY 2014. SUNDAY. N4. 
The 'de facto' argument in favor of the schizophrenic Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino language and at the expense of the other 180 Philippine languages. 

I HAVE HEARD this argument before: that as a matter of fact, there is a national language of the Philippines, and that is Filipino. 

Using the metric of linguistics, I have demonstrated that Filipino is not a language, but is, in truth and in fact, is a dialect of Tagalog.

Philippine laws after 1935 were very honest and inclusive in their language when these used the phrase 'Tagalog as the basis of the national language.'

That phrase, while unjust, contained some sense of token inclusion when a phrase came after it: the inclusion of 'other existing Philippine languages'.

The 1935 Constitution declared this 'basis', the 1974 Constitution talked of 'Pilipino' and the 1987 Constitution talked of 'Filipino.' That is the career of that magical phrase--the abracadabra of Philippine collective life. In 1935, at least two powerful political leaders made it sure that Tagalog becomes the 'national language.' These are Quezon, then President, and Recto, the presumed nationalist from Batangas who spoke Spanish, and was awarded by Spain for promoting Spanish culture in the Philippines.

The 'de facto' argument states that 'there is the existing national language' and that existing national language is Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino. [What is it, really?]

A proof being offered for that 'de facto' argument is that 'when one goes around the country, one can speak Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino' and you can be understood by all peoples of the Philippines.

When the instruments of the state for lobotomization of the mind starts from grade school, what do we expect? We only have cultural denigration, this hatred of people of their languages, a hatred that is learned via the educational system and via the state cultural apparatus such as the mass media, that inane TV included.

The counter-argument to that is the method the problematization of how that 'de facto' schizophrenic language came about.

It was imposed.

It was instituted by way of the criminal actions of people who were in power. [Read Vicente Albano Pacis and you will cry how we were cheated by this Tagalogism that has been rammed into our throat since 1935].

It was reinforced by a language commission that did not do its job of sustaining and perpetuating and developing other Philippine languages.

It was reinforced further by the educational system that made it sure that every Iloggo, Bisaya, Tausug, Maranaw, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Igorot, Bikol and the rest know Florante at Laura and Balagtas written in Tagalog (and now passed on as 'Filipino') but not their community's history, story, and myths.

In all these are the systematic acts of cheating, the systematic acts of deceiving the various peoples of the homeland.

In all these is the ruse that we have to have 'nationalism' mediated in Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino but never in the native languages of the other, and othered, peoples of the republic.

There is a rule in ethics, and this rule applies to our political life as well: Bonum ex integra causa malum ex cucumque defectu.

Now, argue from a 'de facto' perspective and we will never build a just nation and craft a fair state.

FELIPENAS/