Doctor Jose Dacudao Responds to the Anonuevo Attack

(Note: This is Dr. Jose Dacudao's response to Roberto Anonuevo's attack on me and Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, the advocacy for multilingualism, and multicultural education. Let history be the judge for this continuing systemic exclusionary tactic of the supposedly 'better brains' of Tagalog aesthetics, like Anonuevo's, a kind of aesthetics being passed off as Filipino, and ergo, 'national'. Dr. Dacudao, a brain surgeon based in Davao City, is one of the leading lights on the movement for linguistic and cultural justice in the Philippines.) 

Trolling Anonuevo

Roberto Anonuevo is a member of the WIKA group, the Tagalista NGO that tried to use the Supreme Court in its campaign to totally replace English with Tagalog in our schools. If Anonuevo and his fellows have their way, they will extinguish every non-Tagalog Philippine language. Below is an article of his that used to be in the blogsite, that reveals the typical mentality of Tagalistas, and my comments. He personally attacks Professor Aurelio Agcaoili and snipes at Dr. Ricardo Nolasco; and also hits at multilingualism and Federalism. As a member of Save Our Languages through Federalism who advocates multilingualism and Federalism, I am obliged to state opposing opinions.

 

(Filipino at ang Kaso ng MultilingguwalismoNobyembre 4, 2008 ni Roberto Añonuevo)

 

(Nakakubli sa kalabuan ng ipinakakalat ni Aurelio Solver Agcaoili hinggil sa kaniyang akdang “Countering Tagalism and Tagalogization.” Ayon sa kaniya, ang “Tagalogism is an attitude—a mindset that has trapped us into a belief of a Philippine nation-state as revolving around a center and only this center is important.” )

 

What else is happening? Professor Agcaoili is essentially correct.

 

(Tinatangka niyang destrungkahin ang pananaw na “Tagalog” at yanigin ito sa posisyon bilang batayan ng Filipino na wikang pambansa.)

 

Of course. If we non-Tagalogs do not start doing this, we will disappear as distinct peoples. Already, we have been marginalized, turned into second class citizens in our own places by the attitude of Tagalistas such as Anonuevo.

 

(Ang ganitong haka-haka ay bulaklak ng dila na nagpapalagay na dominanteng wika ang Tagalog, na nasa Imperyong Maynila, at ang Tagalog na ito ay nakaukit sa kamalayaan at kalooban ng bawat Filipino upang kumilos siyang parang robot na sunod-sunuran sa isang makapangyarihang sistema, sa pambihirang gahum na umiiral nang sarili, at nagtatangkang burahin ang iba pang taal na wika sa Filipinas.)

 

Anonuevo implies that there is no problem at all, that we should continue with the present system. This is typical Tagalista propaganda – nothing is wrong so do not advocate your language rights and right to exist as distinct ethnolinguistic peoples. In fact, anyone who approaches the minority status of the non-Tagalog languages of the Philippines pretending that there is nothing wrong has already revealed his adherence to Tagalog Nationalism, either consciously or not, since by default Tagalog Nationalism  is virtually the only language ideology that is being propagated in our educational institutions and national mass media. He wants this condition to continue. He wants to maintain the idea that to be a good ‘Filipino’ one must be a ‘nationalistic’ Tagalog. Anonuevo and Tagalistas want this to be literally true, to replace every non-Tagalog citizen of the Philippines with Tagalogs.

 

(Kung ang “Tagalogism” ay isang uri ng saloobin, dapat ilugar ni Agcaoili kung ano ang pinag-ugatan nito. Ngunit mabibigo ang sinuman na pigain sa kaniyang artikulo ang ugat ng “Tagalogism” o “Tagalism” at kung ikokompara sa ibang kinabitan ng hulaping “-ismo,” ay kulang na kulang para tawaging ideolohiya, kung hindi man diwaing gumagabay sa kabuuan ng mga Filipino—nasa loob man o nasa labas sila ng Filipinas. Maiuugnay din ang “Tagalogism” sa “Tagalogization” na aniya’y “…is that long juridical, linguistic, political, economic, and cultural process that has made it certain that this trap, this temptation relative to the entitlement, privileging, and valorization of Tagalog, is going to continue to have its stranglehod over all of us, Tagalog and non-Tagalog peoples alike.” )

 

It seems that Professor Agcaoili incurred Anonuevo’s ire, by saying the truth. A man’s worth is often known by the enemies he makes. Kudos to Professor Agcaoili.

 

(Mapanganib ang ganitong mapanlahat na pahayag dahil ang “Tagalogization” ay ipinakita rito na sumasaklaw hindi lamang sa wika, kundi maging sa iba pang aspekto ng lipunan, at kung hindi susuhayan ng mga patunay ni Agcaoili ay mananatiling mito lamang na kaniyang inimbento para yanigin ang Tagalog na pinagbatayan sa pagbubuo ng isang wikang pambansa.)

 

As mentioned, if we non-Tagalogs do not do anything to shake the system, we will disappear. Most of the smaller groups are already ‘moribund’, as defined by UNESCO, ethnolinguistic groups defined by less than 300,000 spekaers. These are likely to die off in less than a hundred years. The biggest non-Tagalog ethnic group, the Cebuano-speaking Visayans, will disappear in about 300 years if present trends based on National Statistics Office surveys continue. Anonuevo, the language killer, regards the preservation of these languages apparently as dangerous.

 

(Hindi isinaalang-alang dito ni Agcaoili ang kasaysayan, at tila ba ang Tagalog ay lumitaw na basta-basta lamang.)

 

It is Anonuevo who does not have the proper historical perspective. Tagalog was enforced into our educational institutions only during WW2 by the Japanese colonial government, as a means to strengthen psychological control from Manila . That is how Tagalog ‘floated’ up. Before WW2, there was a flowering of literature in a variety of Philippine languages including Ilocano, Kapampangan, Cebuano, Ilonggo, and so on. Tagalog was merely one of the Philippine languages. Now if you don’t speak it, people like Anonuevo regard you as worth less than nothing.

 

(Kinaligtaan niya ang mahabang pakikibaka ng Tagalog hindi lamang bilang wika, at ang paglampas nito sa hanggahan ng pook ng Katagalugan upang magparaya sa buong bansa, at gamitin bilang tulay na kayang makapag-ugnay sa iba-ibang wika sa Filipinas.

Ito ang mito na kathang-isip ni Agcaoili at siyang ibig ihain sa lahat ng Filipino.)

 

Talking about forgetfulness, Anonuevo conveniently forgets the struggle of non-Tagalogs to survive the imposition of Tagalog Nationalism. We are in danger of disappearing, and it is even well-documented in National Statistics Office surveys that since WW2 the percentages of non-Tagalogs in the Philippine population have been steadily decreasing.

 

What do non-Tagalogs need Tagalog for anyway? We only need two languages to survive in the world, our native tongue which gives us our ethnic identity and which should be taught as special grammar and literature subjects in their traditional areas so they won’t die out, and English, the international language of science and commerce, which should be taught in at least the Science subjects, as more than 90% of new Science and technology is done in the English language.

 

We certainly can communicate with other Philippine ethnic groups in English and we did so during the American colonial period with no trouble at all, the way Indians until today use English to communicate with each other amidst the diversity of their languages. English functions as a socially leveling tongue in the Philippines, the use of which renders all ethnic groups socially equal for there is no ethnic group that claims an identity defined by English, the same way that French is used as a socially leveling tongue in parts of Africa, thus protecting small ethnolinguistic groups from extinction. English is also a necessary language for our overseas workers, and in science and commerce. The imposition of Tagalog among us has resulted only in a feeling of social inferiority among non-Tagalogs, a degradation of our education since our youth now find it harder to comprehend English Science and other educational books, and has also degraded our English language skills, so that our overseas workers find it harder to communicate abroad. These are the very same workers that keep our economy from collapsing. Without our workers’ knowledge of English, our economy would collapse.

 

Apparently what Anonievo wants is to idiotize and pauperize us, in his campaign to turn us all into Tagalogs.

 

(Ang “Tagalogism” na ginamit dito ni Agcaoili ay dapat ikinabit sa “Inglesismo” na uri ng wikang ibig gamitin bilang tulay ng pagtuturo sa lahat ng antas ng paaralan sa Filipinas. Ingles ang banyagang wika na malaki ang ambag upang makaligtaang linangin hindi lamang ang Filipino, bagkus maging ang mga lalawiganing wika—at kabilang na rito ang Tagalog—sa Filipinas. Ingles at Espanyol ang ipinakalat sa sistema ng edukasyon sa bungad ng siglo 20, at naglagay sa panganib ng pagkabura ng kapuwa wika at kultura ng iba’t ibang lalawigan. Ingles ang humalili sa Espanyol at ang ginamit sa Kataas-taasang Hukuman, na pawang Amerikano ang mga mahistrado maliban sa punong mahistradong Filipino. Ingles ang bumahang teksbuk at aklat na pawang inangkat mula sa Estados Unidos, at kakaunti pa noon ang mga babasahing nasusulat sa mga taal na wika sa Filipinas. Ingles ang ginamit sa Unibersidad ng Pilipinas—na paaralang tinutustusan ng estado—at napailalim ang Tagalog sa larangan ng wika ng pagtuturo. Noong bungad ng siglo 20, ang bakbakan ay mauuwi sa panitikan, at nagbigay ng mabuting halimbawa ang mga Tagalog kung paano mapananatili ang kanilang wika, at iyon ay sa pamamagitan ng pagsusulat at paglikha ng iba pang uri ng sining. Sa ganitong lagay, hindi tumupi ang mga manunulat na Tagalog, at patunay ang kanilang mga akda kung paano lumaban sa gahum ng Ingles. Totoong may iba pang lalawiganing wika, gaya ng Bikol, Ilokano, at Sebwano ang nakibaka laban sa Ingles at nagsikap mangibabaw. Ngunit ang mga dapat sanang tagapagtanggol nito—at kabilang na rito ang mga politiko at manunulat—ay sumanib sa Ingles imbes na pagyamanin ang kani-kanilang taal na wika. Taliwas ito sa Tagalog na hindi lamang ipinagtanggol ng mga Tagalog—bagkus kinakitaan din ng potensiyal ng ibang mamamayan—na may kakayahang maging lunsaran ng pambansang wika na magagamit upang pagbuklurin ang mga lalawigang dating binibigkis nang sapilitan ng Ingles. Ang Tagalog ay hindi dapat minamaliit bagkus dapat pa ngang papurihan, dahil kaugnay nito ang kasaysayan sa pagbubuo ng kabansaan, at paggigiit ng kalayaan, mula sa dikta ng mga pasimuno ng Ingles at banyagang edukasyon na ang tuon ay para sa ikagagaling ng merkado at gahum ng dayuhan.)

 

Anonuevo glorifies Tagalog and rants against English. He should seriously try unlearning all of whatever English he knows, and see whether or not people will understand him in the internet. The trouble is that he wants all of us to unlearn English too. That would not be advisable. If Anonuevo wants to make an idiot out of himself by unlearning all the English he knows, fine. Hopefully all other Tagalistas would follow suit. We should not.

 

(Hindi ipinaliwanag ni Agcaoili ang pakahulugan niya ng “Tagalog,” bagaman mahihinuha sa tabas ng kaniyang pananalita na ang “Tagalog” ay siya ring “Filipino” na lumalaganap ngayon sa bansa. Ang pagtanaw na “Filipino” bilang baryedad lamang sa “Tagalog” ay pailalim na panunuligsa sa Filipino upang hindi ito makatayo nang bukod sa orihinal na anyo at laman ng Tagalog. Ang linya ng pangangatwiran ni Agcaoili ay nahahawig sa pahayag ng sinibak na pansamantalang punong komisyoner ng Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino na si Ricardo Ma. Duran Nolasco, na ang “Tagalog” at “Filipino” ay iisang uri lamang alinsunod sa mga katangian nitong panggramatika, at kaya lamang nagkaiba ay dahil sa pagpapalit ng pangalan. Isa itong simplistikong pagtanaw, at pagtanaw na nagtataglay ng sadyang pagkaligta sa iba pang aspekto, gaya ng kasaysayan, konteksto, kaligiran, panahon, at siyang maaaring makaaapekto sa ebolusyon ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa.)

 

Well, Anonuevo did not miss a chance to snipe at the patriotic Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, a better linguist than he is, and a man who sincerely wants to preserve the Philippine languages. Dr. Nolasco will be known as a hero by non-Tagalog Filipinos a hundred years from now, while Anonuevo’s name will be a forgotten nightmare. A man like Anonuevo who would throw potshots at a man like Dr. Nolasco who just lost his job in order to protect the ethnolinguistic identities of the peoples of the Philippines fully deserves to be sniped at as well. As said above, a man’s worth is often known by the enemies he makes. Kudos to Dr. Ricardo Nolasco. You have our eternal gratitude for your efforts in trying to save the Philippine languages.

 

Anonuevo also goes back to the old justification to impose Tagalog under the guise of the WW2 Tagalista cliché of ‘evolving Filipino’. This cliché which the Tagalistas of the past have gotten incorporated into the Philippine Constitution exists for that purpose alone, as a justification to impose Tagalog. The ‘Filipino’ that is being used in the school curriculum is nothing more than honey-coated Tagalog, with Tagalog grammatical rules.

 

Let us suppose that a Philippine President or future leader decides that in order to ‘evolve’ Filipino further, it should adopt Ilonggo Visayan grammatical rules, and even the Ilonggo sing-song intonation, which foreign outsiders seem to love listening to. This is not too far-fetched because the present honey-coated Tagalog Filipino has similar although not identical grammatical rules as Ilonggo Visayan and a lot of cognate words, such that it is generally easy for any real Tagalog to learn Ilonggo. I am sure the hypocritical Anonuevo will be the first to protest this new evolutionary trend in the Filipino language.

 

(Ang taguring “Filipino” ay hindi lamang “Tagalog,” at ang Tagalog ay hindi kayang kumontrol sa magiging anyo at laman ng Filipino. Ang mungkahi ng gaya niCarl Rubino na “muling pagsasabalangkas” ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa ay isang magandang proyekto, ngunit ang ganitong mungkahi ay tumatanaw lamang sa wika na tila walang sariling buhay at nakatiwalag sa mga tao na gumagamit ng wika, at ipinapalagay na ang mga gumagamit ng sari-saring wika ay nagkakaisa sa pagsasaayos ng kolektibong wikang mahihinuhang may labo-labong gramatika at palaugnayan, at yamang walang isang wikang gagawing haligi ng pagpupundar, ay malayang isiping pagtatayo ng maalamat na Tore ng Kalabuan.)

 

Tagalistas like Anonuevo cannot even call a spade a spade. If Anonuevo were to enroll in a Linguistics program in any country except the Philippines (what irony) and insist that the present ‘Filipino’ is not Tagalog, he would flunk out. If ‘Filipino’ and Tagalog are mutually intelligible and are mutually unintelligible with all other languages in the Philippines , then they are the same language, and the other Philippine languages are not ‘Filipino’. Tagalog though may occur variants called dialects, one of which is the language that is being enforced in our schools as ‘Filipino’. ‘Filipino’ is a Tagalog dialect, mutually intelligible with all other dialects of Tagalog such as Bulaceno or Batangueno, and mutually unintelligible with Ilocano, Pangasinense, Kapampangan, the Bicol languages, the Visayan languages, and so on. If Anonuevo were to insist that to be a ‘Filipino’ one must learn to speak ‘Filipino’, then many citizens of the Philippines would not be ‘Filipinos’. This might look like a petty semantic problem, but it is not. Apparently, Anonuevo and other Taglistas want to achieve the ideal ‘Filipino’ by forcing all the future children in the Philippines to learn and speak nothing but ‘Filipino’, thereby effectively killing the Philippines’ ancient ethnolinguistic identities.

 

(Ang Filipino ay pagkilala sa kabansaang may iba-iba mang wika ay tinutuhog ng isang malaganap na wikang may sapat na malig na magagamit ng bawat lalawiganing wika at sa komunikasyon ng mga Filipinong maaaring ang kinamulatang wika ay wikang lalawiganin. Ang Filipino ay paraan ng pagtulay at pag-uugnay sa mga taal na wika sa Filipinas upang pagbukluran, habang masinop na nagbubukas ng pinto sa anumang internasyonal na wikang makapagdaragdag sa kaban ng pambansang talasalitaan, pahiwatig, diskurso, pakahulugan, gramatika. at iba pang kaugnay na bagay. Ang Filipino ay isang natatanging paraan ng pagsagap sa daigdig, ngunit paraan din kung paano titingnan ng mamamayang Filipino ang kaniyang sarili at ang kaniyang bansa.)

 

What Anonuevo means is that everyone should become a Tagalog in the national setting. As mentioned, if ‘Filipino’ were legally defined to be Ilonggo, which theoretically could happen as nowhere in the Philippine Constitutions does it say the ‘Filipino’ should be Tagalog, Anonuevo would be eating his own words and vomiting them out.

 

(Bagaman ang Filipino ay maipapalagay na “ikalawang wika” para sa ibang taga-lalawigan, ang pagiging “ikalawang wika” nito ay malayo sa kapuwa pakahulugan at karanasan ng pagiging “ikalawang wika” ng gaya ng Ingles na banyagang wikang ang Anglo-Amerikanong tradisyon ay kakatwa kung ilalapat sa kaligiran, konteksto, at diskurso ng Filipinas. Bukod pa rito, ang Filipino ay dapat sipatin nang higit sa saklaw ng lingguwistika, bagkus kaugnay ng konsepto ng pakikipagkapuwa, kabansaan, at kasarinlan.

Pinapatay ba ng Filipino bilang pambansang wika ang mga lalawiganing wika? Hindi. Ang palagay na ipinapaibabaw ang “Filipino” para patayin ang mga lalawiganing wika ay walang batayan, at magsisimula ito kahit sa talakayan, saliksik, at pagtatalong naganap nang itatag ang Institute of National Language (INL) noong 1936 para sa planong bumuo ng pambansang wika, at alinsunod sa itinatadhana ng Saligang Batas ng 1935. Mahalaga noon ang pagtataguyod ng pambansang wika, dahil ang Filipinas ay dumaan sa yugto ng digmaan at kolonisasyon, at tanging Ingles at Espanyol ang umiiral na opisyal na mga wika sa Filipinas. Ang pagpili sa Tagalog noon na magiging batayan ng wikang pambansa ay sumailalim sa pag-aaral, pagsasarbey, pagsusuri, at talakayan, kaya hindi makatwiran ang paratang ni Agcaoili na tila tunggak ang mga kasapi ng INL na madaling nilamon ng administrasyon ni Pang. Manuel Quezon.)

 

As usual, Anonuevo pretends there is no problem. He also again makes a statement that degrades English and promotes Tagalog. Anonuevo should try proving his own words by forgetting every English word he has ever learned and see if does not make him look like an idiot. He takes the chance to praise Quezon, one of the fathers of Tagalog Nationalism.

 

(Nakaligtaang banggitin ni Agcaoili na kaya pinili noon ang Tagalog na maging batayan ng wikang pambansa ay dahil ito ang pinakamaunlad na wika nang panahong iyon, mulang estruktura at mekanismo hanggang panitikan at paggamit ng malaking bilang ng mga Filipino, alinsunod sa itinatakda ng Batas Komonwelt Bilang 184. Mula noon, ang Tagalog ay lumampas sa dati nitong hanggahan at gamit, at malayang tumanggap ng iba pang salita, pakahulugan, pahiwatig, at diskursong nagmumula sa lalawiganing wika—sa kabila ng paggigiit na gamitin ang Ingles sa buong Filipinas.

 

Hindi rin totoong purong Tagalog lamang ang nanaig noon. Kahit sa kautusang ipinakalat ni Celedonio Salvador, na Patnugot ng Edukayon, noong 15 Nobyembre 1940, iminumungkahi ang pagpapalawak ng talasalitaan at wikaing idyomatiko, at ang ganitong kabigat na responsabilidad ay hindi lamang tinatanaw na para lamang sa Tagalog bagkus maging sa ibang taal na wika sa bansa. Kung nagkulang man sa paglinang ng ibang lalawiganing wika ay hindi dapat isisi sa Tagalog, kundi sa baluktot na patakaran at programa ng pamahalaang pumapabor sa paggamit ng Ingles. Nang sakupin ng Hapón ang Filipinas, ayon kay Teodoro Agoncillo, sinikap ng Hapón na palaganapin ang Nihonggo sa buong bansa ngunit nabigo dahil sa kakulangan ng mga guro at pagkatanto na ang banyagang wika ay mahirap palitan ang mga naunang banyagang wika bukod sa mahirap burahin ang mga taal na wika sa Filipinas. Nabatid din ng Hapón na tanging ang pambansang wika lamang ang kayang bumigkis sa kapuluan, at nagkataong nakapag-ambag na naman ang Tagalog. Kahit si Pang. Jose Laurel ay nakita ang kahalagahan ng isang wikang pambansa, lalo sa panahon ng digmaan, ligalig, at karukhaan, at ang wikang ito, aniya, ay magagamit upang magkaintindihan ang mga tao na nagmula sa magkakaibang lalawigan. Muli, hindi arbitraryo ang pagpili sa Tagalog bilang batayan ng wikang pambansa. Nagsagawa muli ng sarbey at pag-aaral at talakayan, at napatunayang Tagalog ang may pinakamabisang katangian para maging haligi ng wikang pambansa, na susuhayan ng mga taal na wika sa buong kapuluan.)

 

Naturally the Japanese wanted to promote Niponggo. But that does not change the fact that they promoted Tagalog as well, and it was only during Japanese times that Tagalog was first enforced in our Educational system. Tagalistas before WW2 could not do it because of strong resistance from the non-Tagalog peoples of the Philippines . Before WW2, Tagalog was just another Philippine language at par with Ilocano, Pangasinense, Kapampangan, and so on. Anonuevo should be transported in a time machine back to WW2 where he could lick the boots of the colonial Japanese authorities to lend credence to his words.

 

(Binigyan umano ng pitong dekada ang Tagalog, ani Agcaoili, na maging batayan ng pambansang wika ngunit nabigo ito at winasak pa umano ang milyon-milyong Filipino. Marahas ang ganitong paratang, at ang paratang na ito ay hindi isinaalang-alang ang mga panahon, kaligiran, at kontekstong pinagmulan ng Tagalog na dumaan sa mga digmaan at pag-aaklas; sa diskriminasyon ng Ingles, Espanyol, at Hapones; at kahit sa saliwang pagpapahalaga ng mga politiko at akademiko sa Filipinas. Kahit ang Kumbensiyong Pansaligang Batas noong 1971 ay isang madilim na yugto sa Filipino, dahil ang mga kalahok noon ay nais gawing pambansang wika ang Ingles na nabago lamang nang magprotesta ang mga aktibista at tuligsain ang gayong pakana ng mga demagogong politiko. Pambihira ang Filipinas na ang Saligang Batas—na pagbabatayan ng iba pang batas, kautusan, at kaugnay na patakaran—ay isinulat sa Ingles, at hindi nabigyan ng pagkakataon na gamitin ang Filipino na maging pangunahing wika sa gayong kahalagang instrumento. )

 

What’s wrong with having multiple national or official languages, including English? Nothing, and it has many advantages. Many countries have multiple official languages, including English, as for example in India. It’s high time the Constitution should be amended to one that recognizes multiple official languages; or none at all and leave the language issue to LGUs which no doubt would be prone to pronounce English as one of their official languages.

 

Koreans are even going to the Philippines to learn English. Anonuevo should go to the airport and wave a placard at every arriving Korean and rant at them at how evil English is.

 

(Totoo ngang nakasaad na ang pambansang wika ay kikilalaning “Filipino,” ayon Saligang Batas ng 1972, ngunit ang pagdurugtong ng pariralang “shall be evolved, developed and adopted based on existing native languages and dialects without precluding the assimilation of words from foreign languages” ay pailalim na pinahihina ang estado ng Filipino. Sa pananaw ng mga delegado, walang kakayahan ang “Filipino”—na parang nasa yugto ng pagkasanggol kahit marami nang napatunayan kung pagbabatayan ang mga palimbag na panitikan—at ang pambansang wikang ito ang sinusurot ni Agcaoili na nabigong magsilbi sa buong Filipinas. Ikakatwiran ng mga lingguwista at sosyolingguwista na kailangan ang estandardisasyon ng wika para maitaguyod ang ortograpiya, at makapaglaan ng unipormadong anyo ng mga sangguniang aklat. Ngunit malabo ang ganitong punto kung isasaalang-alang kung gaano kalawak ang nasabing estandardisasyon, na ang paglihis sa pamantayan ay maiisip na kakulungan kung hindi man patunay sa katangahan.)

 

As mentioned above, there is no provision in any Philippine Constitution past or present that says that the National language is Tagalog. Anonuevo would be the first to squeal foul if for example Ilonggo were suddenly defined to be the national Language ‘Filipino’. He cannot stomach the thought of any other language supplanting the Tagalog of his chauvinistic and racist dreams. This guy simply discriminates against all non-Tagalogs in the Philippines.

 

(Nilupig ba ng Tagalog ang iba pang wika sa Filipinas, ayon sa paratang ni Agcaoili? Hindi. Naging ahente ba ang Tagalog para durugin ang lunggati at simulain ng iba pang taal na wika at kultura sa Filipinas, ayon sa paratang ni Agcaoili? Hindi. Ang pagtanaw na nilupig ng Tagalog ang iba pang taal na wika sa Fiipinas ay ibang paraan ng pagsasabing napakahina nga ng mga taal na wika sa buong bansa at kayang diktahan ng isang wika lamang. Walang makinarya, kapangyarihan, at impluwensiya ang mga pasimuno ng Tagalog kung ihahambing sa panig ng mga tagapagsulong ng Ingles, dahil Ingles ay nakalusot na maging opisyal na wika at ginagamit sa iba’t ibang sangay ng pamahalaan, batasan, negosyo, at akademya magpahangga ngayon. Humina rin ang mga taal na wika dahil kulang ang mga manunulat at tagapagtaguyod nito, at isang sanhi ang penomenon ng tinaguriang “pagpapalit-wika” at may kinalaman dito ang gahum ng Ingles. Ang Tagalog kung naging batayan man ng Filipino ay isang pangyayaring dapat tingnan sa positibong paraan. Ang Tagalog marahil ang pinakaprogresibong wika na nangunang magbukas ng pinto para tumanggap ng malawakang pagbabago na halos ikalusaw ng sarili nito, ngunit ginawa iyon ng Tagalog hindi para sa mga Tagalog lamang kundi upang isilang muli sa ibang anyo at nilalaman sa pakikipagtulungan sa iba-ibang taal na wika, at maging batayan ng wikang pambansa. Ang tagumpay ng Filipino ay ngayon pa lamang nakikita, hindi lamang sa tradisyonal na mass media, kundi maging sa internet. Malayo na ang iniungos ng Filipino, at nilampasan na nito ang baryotikong komiks, at humahangga sa matatalim na diskurso. Sinusubok na ang Filipino sa iba’t ibang lárang, at hindi ako magtataka kung maging wika rin iyon kahit sa hukuman, negosyo, medisina, at akademya.)

 

Making a reaction to Anonuevo is admittedly a boring job, for he keeps on repeating the same stuff in various forms again and again. He once again pretends nothing is wrong with the system. Well two can play at that game. So I repeat, instead of imposing Tagalog on people who want to learn English, he should impose it on himself alone. This guy should really try talking laws, business, and medicine to the international community of lawyers, businessmen, and doctors only in Tagalog, and place a video of it in ‘you tube.’ However, I am afraid he would look like an idiot.

 

To my readers, even now, which paragraphs are you reading? The ones Anonuevo is writing in Tagalog or the ones I am writing in English?

 

(Ang nakapagtataka’ y ginagamit na dahilan ang multilingguwalismo upang buwagin ang naipundar nang tagumpay ng Filipino bilang wikang pambansa. Ang bersiyon ng multilingguwalismo na isinusulong ngHB 3719 (2008 Multilingual Education and Literacy Act) ni Rep. Magtanggol Gunigundo ay magpapalakas sa reenkarnasyon ng Ingles, at hindi sa mga lalawiganing wika, dahil wala itong itinatakdang sapat na pondo, impraestruktura, kawani, at iba pang bagay para sa pagbubunsod ng malawakan at sabayang pagpapalago ng mga taal na wika. Ang multilingguwalismo ay mauuwi sa laway, at animo’y nakatuon para sa itatatag na Federalismo—na ang bawat lalawigan ay makapagsasariling estado na bibiyak lalo sa Filipinas—at kaya mahihinuha ang pagpipilit na idikit ang wika sa usapin ukol sa kultura, heograpiya, politika, at ekonomiya. Kakatwa ito dahil ang Filipino, na mula sa Tagalog, ay laging sumusuporta sa pagpapalago ng mga lalawiganing wika at sa pagbibigkis ng mga mamamayan. Kung nabigo man ang gaya ng Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino noon at magpahangga ngayon ay maibubunton ang sisi sa marurupok nitong patakaran, programa, at pamunuang kulang sa bisyon at sigasig na paunlarin ang mga taal na wika sa Filipinas, at kabilang na rito ang mga punong komisyoner na sina Ponciano Pineda, Nita Buenaobra, at Ricardo Nolasco. Ngunit hindi ito kataka-taka. Ang nasabing Komisyon ay kulang din sa badyet, kulang sa mga dalubhasang kawani, kulang sa mahuhusay na pamunuan, kulang sa kasanayan, kung hindi man sadyang kulang-kulang, kaya ang nagiging silbi magpahangga ngayon ay maging katuwang ng Malacañang sa mga hakbanging pampolitika nito.

 

Pilit na pag-uuri ang “Tagalogisasyon” at “Tagalogismo,” at ito ang dapat tanggapin ni Agcaoili. Ang “tiranya ng Tagalogisasyon” at makamandag “na pang-aakit ng Tagalogismo” ay kathang isip lamang ni Agcaoili, at nababahiran ng lihis na pagbasa sa politikang pangkultura, at hinango sa diskurso ng Ingles na pilit iniaangkop bilang paraan ng pagtanaw at pagdestrungka sa Filipino. Na hindi makatwiran. Ang karanasan ng Filipinas ay malayo sa karanasang multilingguwal at multinasyonal na pamayanang nagaganap sa Europa, Afrika, at Amerika, at siyang ibig ipadron sa pagbasa sa karanasan sa buong kapuluan. Wala ring mabalasik na deskriminasyon at prehuwisyo na ipinataw ang Filipino na ikalulusaw ng mga taal na wika sa Filipinas, kompara sa nagaganap sa ibang bansa, kahit pa sabihing ginamit ang Filipino sa pag-aaral ng ilang lárang sa elementarya at hay-iskul. Ang realidad sa Filipinas ay Ingles pa rin ang ibig panaigin bilang wikang opisyal, na mapagbalatkayong taguri sa “wikang pambansa,” at ang pinakabagong halimbawa ay ang patakaran na tanging Ingles lamang ang dapat umiral sa Pamantasan ng Maynila, at gawing midyum sa pagtuturo ang Ingles sa lahat ng antas ng pag-aaral alinsunod sa dikta ngDepartamento ng Edukasyon. Hindi rin isinaalang-alang ni Agcaoili na ang migrasyon, urbanisasyon, at pagpapalit-wika ay kaugnay ng pagkamatay ng mga taal na wika, dahil higit na pipiliin na gamitin ang Ingles para mapangalagaan ang ekonomikong interes at seguridad pampolitika, o kaya’y para makaligtas sa deskriminasyon sa larangan ng hanapbuhay, gaya sa pagpasok sa call center at pagtatrabaho sa ibang bansa.

 

Matagal nang pinapatay ang Tagalog noon pa man kahit sa pagbasa ng kasaysayan, at kahit sa loob ng Maynila na ibig ay Ingles ang manaig sa edukasyon, negosyo, batasan, at hukuman; at ngayong narito na ang Filipino na naghahain ng pambihirang posibilidad bilang pambansang wikang makabibigkis sa mga Filipino ay isasalang muli sa marahas na bibitayan ng prehuwisyo at kaululan. Paunlarin natin ang mga taal na wika sa Filipinas; ngunit huwag naman nating patayin ang alimbukad ng isang wikang pambansa.

 

Ang paglingon sa ebolusyon ng Tagalog tungong Filipino ay makatutulong sa paglinang at pagpapayabong ng mga taal na wika sa Filipinas, at madudukalan ng aral at karanasan, ngunit hindi ito magaganap hangga’t patuloy na ginagamit na wika, diskurso, at pananaw ang Ingles para paikutin ang kapalaran ng mga Filipino.)

 

Anonuevo clearly does not believe in the present UNESCO International Year of Languages. Nor does he believe in the UN drafts that call for the promotion and teaching of the dying marginalized languages of the world, to which the Philippines is a signatory to.

 

In the above rambling paragagraphs, Anonuevo tries to troll the Gunigundo bill which he really hates not only because it rationally promotes English, but also because it mandates the use of non-Tagalog Philippine languages in elementary schools. This is something he cannot openly say. Tagalistas like Anonuevo will always be against elevating non-Tagalog languages to the status of Tagalog.

 

Anonuevo in his rant above manages to troll theGunigundo bill, Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, Professor Aurelio Agcaoli, multilingualism, and Federalism all at the same time. 

 

I use the word troll above, because trolling has nothing to do with right or wrong arguments, but about taking potshots at someone or something. At this end stage,Anonuevo is now venting his Tagalista ire on theGunigundo bill, Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, Professor Aurelio Agcaoli, multilingualism, and Federalism. What do they all have in common? They all are against the idea of Tagalog Nationalism and all promote the preservation of non-Tagalog Philippine languages.

 

Dr. Nolasco is portrayed as lacking in nobility. What baloney. How much nobler can a man get, endangering his life’s career for the sake of an ideal he and his Linguistics teachers in the USA believe in – to save the dying languages of the world?

 

Professor Agcaoili is misrepresented as having a hallucination. Coming from someone who writes rather incoherently, attacking someone of the intellectual caliber of Professor Agcaoili sounds downright funny, especially when he mixes it up with migration, urbanization, tirades against English, the evolution of Tagalog, the fate of Filipino, and pretends all the while that nothing is wrong.

 

What a remarkable trolling technique. Anonuevo should next go to India or Australia and tell the people there that they are idiots for allowing Federalism to split up their countries.

 

Countering Tagalogization

Our Redemptive Response to

the Timeless Temptations of Tagalogism and 

to the Tyranny of Tagalogization

 

Aurelio Solver Agcaoili

 

 

We pray we are not going to fall into the same trap of Tagalogism and Tagalogization again, not when we were made to believe—tempted and fooled—by the powers-that-were.

 

Tagalogism is an attitude—a mindset that has trapped us into a belief of a Philippine nation-state as revolving around a center and only this center is important.

 

As a mental disposition, Tagalogism is not about the Tagalog people, and many of them have nothing to do with, as many of them have been deprived of their own language and culture when, with a stroke of a pen, Tagalog as a language suddenly became something else.

 

The counter-discourse to Tagalogism is about how we revisit the definitions of ourselves, and how we express those definitions in light of our basic need for emancipatory knowledge of who we are as a Philippine nation made up of many nations, where we are, and where we are going.

 

Tagalogization, on the other hand, is that long juridical, linguistic, political, economic, and cultural process that has made it certain that this trap, this temptation relative to the entitlement, privileging, and valorization of Tagalog, is going to continue to have its stranglehold over all of us, Tagalog and non-Tagalog peoples alike.

 

The enlightened Tagalog people are not the problem here; those who continue to have that triumphal attitude with the lording of Tagalog over all other Philippine languages are the problems.

 

For even among the non-Tagalog people, there lies among them poets and writers and academics and scholars and linguists who do not know that the entitlement of one language over another may lead to an exclusion that could be irredeemably damaging to the excluded languages and cultures.

 

The enemy is in every individual of the Philippines, in the homeland as well as in the diaspora.

 

And this individual is lurking—or hiding behind some abstractions we call ‘nationalism’ and ‘education’ and ‘literacy’, abstractions that, when devoid of the proper context, are there only to make superiority pronouncements and thus legitimize the exclusionary tactics of the center.

 

 

The beginnings of our linguistic and cultural Gethsemane can be traced to that Constitutional Convention that began in 1934 and ended in February 1935. That Con-Con could have taught us peoples of the Philippines and other peoples of the world the virtues of cultural pluralism and respect for language rights, this last one veritably an expression of unconditional respect for basic human rights. 

 

But the 1935 Constitution that came out of that convention of the supposedly most capable and most astute political leaders of the land co-opted with the powers-that-were was an occasion of falling from grace, a grace that could be given only to us by respecting our cultural diversity and by pursuing language pluralism as a way of life of a nation made up of many nations such as the Philippines.

 

The proceedings of the Con-Con bear witness to this fall that we are trying to rise from today, an act of courage on the part of all peripheralized ethnolinguistic communities of the Philippines, with the House Bill 3719 that hopes to remake the template of an oppressive educational system in the Philippines that makes everyone in basic education—and even in tertiary education—as cultural and linguistic zombies and robots of the Tagalog and English languages.

 

These ethnolinguistic communities have been peripheralized because we have come to believe that our salvation as a people is the glamorizing of a single speech, and the allowing of ourselves to be continually hoodwinked by the Marcosian dictum of ‘isang bansa, isang diwa’—one language, one nation—a dictum that worked like an incantation to the dictator and his speech writers, including some academics from the University of the Philippines serving as his think-tank and book writers and who passed on to him the French model of that abominable phrase, clearly not an original formula for state-crafting and nation-building. 

 

The failure of many of us to understand the spirit of cultural pluralism as the spirit that could have shaped our collective life is the same failure that we continue to commit until today, seventy-three years after.

 

And those people who are in the know—the very people who could help us free ourselves from the enchantment of Tagalogism and Tagalogization are sometimes the very people that tell us that we have no business fighting for our linguistic and cultural rights and that our only business is to speak the language of the center, act in that language, and dream in that language.

 

The powers-that-were that continue to incarnate and reincarnate as the powers-that-are and the powers-that-be in our midst and wearing many hats, entrenched as they are in the academia and in the corridors of power are to be judged by our ethnolinguistic communities as Pharisees and Sadducees of Philippine culture. Here come the conquered becoming conquerors, the colonized becoming the new colonial masters.

 

These people come to us saying the same things against our languages and cultures—and even against our sense of selves. And these people have no new argument to offer against our claim to the language of our own selves, identities, and particular lives.

 

The discourse of these same people is the same discourse we have heard more than seven decades ago except that now, with the lobotomized agents of uniculturalism and monolingualism in Philippine education by their sleeves and pockets, they are more boisterous now, their loud noises their bluff to make us cower in fear and accept their illogicalities and bad because unproductive gospel of monolingualism in favor of the language of the center.

 

If we looked at their discourses, we can see the same rehashed arguments, some of them empty of content as they are self-serving: (a) the valuing of regional languages is ‘impractical’ and that (b) we have to give ‘Tagalog’ language—the basis, they say, of the national language—a chance. We gave Tagalog one fat chance for seven decades and it did not deliver the goods except to destroy millions and millions of us.

 

These arguments come from people who know no other Philippine languages, even if some of them, as one has said, that they can curse in other languages.

 

Even this admission of cursing in a language not really your own is an admission of guilt: that you have no respect for languages other than your own because you cannot see these languages as the dwelling place of a people’s soul owning these languages except as your language for cursing. This admission is itself an admission of failure in the unqualified respect that we all have to give to language and cultural rights as an expression of our respect for fundamental human rights. What we have therefore are culturally entrenched practitioners of Tagalogism and Tagalogization—cultural agents of injustice—who can only afford to tell us that Manila is the center of the Philippine world and that whatever Manila does is the truth.

 

The call for a ‘national’ language did not come as a pure and pristine call for nation building.

 

The motives, as history would tell us, are a mixed bag of personal defense against the charge of multilingual incompetence to the outright internal neo-colonization agendum by the same people who were—are—announcing liberation to our people.

 

We go the route of Manuel Luis Quezon and his flawed preference for the Philippines ‘run like hell by Filipinos’ than by, say, ‘run like heaven by Americans.’ Using that and other language claims, he would argue for the process of decolonization by following the route of the nation-state model imported from Spain, Germany, England, and France. That was his template for the Philippine nation-state speaking a single language. In his own words, he went to Vigan, had the ‘misfortune’ of using an Ilokano interpreter so he could talk with the Ilokano people, and which experience humbled him so, and which, in many ways, prodded him to push for a ‘national’ language that he understood and he could use, to speak with the Filipino, who, in his imagination, would now be all parroting Tagalog words and phrases learned unimaginatively in many unimaginative Tagalog language classrooms. Read the subtext here—which subtext he also said in that speech in Letran College: imagine me a President speaking to my people using an Ilokano interpreter because I do not speak Ilokano. And so his imperial solution: let everyone speak Tagalog, the Tagalog of the President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.

 

Quezon, of course, conveniently forgot that for Spain and Germany and England and France to have become examples of modern-day European nation-states, they all had to suppress—and the operative word here is ‘suppress’—other legitimate languages and thus cultures of their territories, thus creating the questionable semblance—a dubious verisimilitude—that these countries had only one and only one ‘national’ language.

 

The history of the oppressive power of the French Academy, a powerful cabal of Francophiles that cannot see that there are other languages of France beside French, is a proof of the oppressive power of Tagalog, sometimes passed off as Pilipino, or if one were from the more esteemed universities in Imperial Manila, this Pilipino is now Filipino, in accord with the dictate—read: dictate—of the 1987 Constitution. 

 

Quezon admitted this presidential dilemma—a classic dilemma of a ‘Tagalogistic’ mind, a mind that is content with the Tagalog view of the universe and that never tries harder to see other Philippine realities and Philippine worldviews afforded by other Philippine languages and cultures.

 

The Tagalogistic mindset, therefore, is ‘the’ implausible Philippine mindset.

 

With the illogical isomorphism in that equation Tagalog=Pilipino/Filipino—a curious thing that many knowledgeable linguists would reject for its flawed claims in a bioculturally diverse country like the Philippines—Tagalogism and Tagalogization have become the official path to creating the ‘new’ Philippine nation-state, a political dream that was valorized when the center of power came to Imperial Manila with the blessings of all the colonizers and their allies and collaborators, a political dream nevertheless that was also dreamed of by many ‘nations’ of the Philippines in the Visayas, especially when they declared their own republic that antedated any claims to an imagined Tagalog republic. In the North—in the Amianan—was the Candon Republic.

 

With the center of power—the axis of all power that remained undistributed until today—unable to communicate with those beyond that center for either because of lack of motivation as in the case of Quezon and all those other Quezons that came after him or because of linguistic and cultural incompetence, the center of power thus served as the French of France, the Madrid Spanish of Spain, the English of London, and the German of Berlin and elsewhere. Thus inaugurated the Tagalogization of all peoples of the Philippines, at least from the perspective of the sitting president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines at that time. Read through the proceedings of the 1934-1935 Constitutional Convention—but read the Jose P. Laurel version published by Lyceum of the Philippines, a version with only one copy at the Laurel Foundation Library. The other version published by the House of Representatives more than 30 years after the ratification of the 1935 Constitution is not as complete as the Laurel version.

 

The sentiments against what some people term ‘chauvinism in regional languages’ or ‘regionalism’ and that fossilized call for a ‘national’ language that is in league with other things ‘national’ such as a ‘national’ animal and a ‘national bird’ and a ‘national’ flower and a ‘national dress’ come to view when we look at the intents and purpose of the 2008 Literacy Education Act of the Philippines and the House Bill 3719 of Representative Magtanggol Gunigundo.

 

No, a people’s language does not operate the way a carabao, the national animal, would. Nor does it operate the way a national flower would like the sampaguita that is now missing, except in lurid streets in Manila where it is vended as a garland for the Child Jesus and the Mother of Perpetual Help.

 

A language is the abode of a people’s soul, the dwelling place of his sense of self, his sense of the world, and the sense of his dreams for both the present and future, for that present that is also a future. Deprive a people of that language and you have murdered them. Advocates of linguistic rights call this linguicide, or the killing of a language.

 

Lately, the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, an august body of well-meaning academics and professionals who are in the know about human cognition and its relation to the mother language, human knowledge and its relation to human and societal liberation, and the liberatory power of the language of our souls released a statement supporting literacy education in its multicultural form. We applaud the LSP for doing that.

 

In May 2008, delegates of 2008 Nakem Conferences held at St. Mary’s University in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, passed a resolution totally supporting HB 3719. That resolution, published in a scanned form at the Nakem Conferences website, was handed over personally to Rep. Gunigundo in July 2008, at a consultative assembly participated in by Nakem Conferences.

 

The participants of the 2008 Nakem Conferences understood where multicultural education should begin: in their classrooms. That was their rationale for the endorsement of the Gunigundo legislative initiative.

 

With the abominable cultural denigration that is happening in the Philippines—with many Filipinos (except the Tagalogs and Tagalogized) being made to behave and think and view the world as Tagalogs and these same people looking down upon their own mother languages and their own cultures and the peoples who do not behave and think and view the world like Tagalogs—the teachers and academics and cultural workers of Nakem Conferences saw that HB 3719 is the only way to go to once-and-for-all claim for the peoples of the Amianan and all other peoples of the Philippines the fruits of linguistic democracy and cultural justice.

 

In sum, HB 3719 argues for a multicultural education for the Philippines, a template for education that values the basic human experiences of peoples, experiences that are mediated by their own languages and not by other people’s languages, and grow from that experience in keeping with the duty to relate to and with other people to form a community.

 

The educational template of the Philippines is one that does exactly the opposite: students are schooled in the language of other people’s languages, with their schooling basically a rote memorization afforded by Tagalog (well, for Constitutional reasons that some would like to read: P/Filipino) and English. Thus we have students who never learned who they are and yet are expected to learn other people’s sense of who they are through the second or third languages, Tagalog and English, languages that are constantly rammed into their throat as soon as they get into their classrooms, the ramming consistent and legal but never moral and culturally just, until they all become cultural and linguistic parrots.

 

It is something curious, thus, that while many of the nation-states of the world that followed the route of the fossilized view of ‘national’ language are revisiting the linguistic injustice and cultural tyranny that they systematically effected in order to glorify their nation-state a la Napoleon who had to deny his being Corsican in the name of the glorious French language, the Philippines is still going the route to ‘national’ language, a concept that valorizes, privileges, and gives entitlements to one and only one language.

 

We can grant here, tentatively, the virtue of ‘national’ language as defined by well-meaning scholars of Philippine languages as the imagined medium of communication among the peoples of the Philippines.

 

But we cannot close our eyes to the fact that in an effort to do so, taxpayers’ money and the scarce resources of the country have been used to promote, sustain, develop, and teach Tagalog (well, now, they call it with another name). Except for token support from some government agencies for token awards or grants for some token cultural programs, no support of the magnitude given to Tagalog has ever been given to other Philippine languages, major or minor. The 1987 Constitution of the Philippines provides for its translation into the major languages. We do not know if, apart from Tagalog, that Constitution has ever been translated into the languages of all the peoples of the Philippines so that, like the claim to the Philippines as some kind of a working democracy, people could say, in their own language, that their basic human right to their own language is guaranteed by their own Constitution. This means that this failure is itself a proof of unconstitutional acts of the Philippine Government, its pertinent language and culture agencies included.  

 

There is nothing wrong with regionalism in the Philippines.

 

The territorial basis of Tagalogism and Tagalogization as unruly phenomena of Philippine collective life is a region as well.

 

The fact that at this time only a handful of urban centers are developed is a clear proof of the underdevelopment of the Philippines—or that more sinister fact of uneven development. This underdevelopment/uneven development is entwined in how we continue our political, economic, and cultural life—with Imperial Manila as the center of the Philippine universe, and thus with Tagalog as ‘the’ language of power.

 

When a country talks of democracy but has only one language to claim as a developed language, when it has only a few city centers as developed centers, and when it has only one place from which all political powers come from, then, that country has no business calling itself a democracy. Truth is: it is not. That country is a cultural tyrant; that country is a linguistic despot.

 

The genesis of our misery is that we believed in the lies of the past and we permitted these lies to frame and structure our political, cultural, and economic life. The currency of these lies is that this nation-state that we have built is made up of only one nation (one read from Imperial Manila) and that it is impossible to speak of various states that could make up that nation among nations. What goes with that currency is the dubious position we have accorded to Tagalog, a position that has made many our people fall into the trap that Tagalogism is the governing applied philosophy of all peoples of the Philippines and that Tagalogization is the only one true process we have to go through in the pursuit of the ends of the Philippine nation-state.

 

With HB 3719, we are going to put an end to the systemic and systematic miseducation of our people. And soon.

 

Our peoples of the Philippines have decided—and this decision is wrought in the language of their souls. And that language is their language. 

 

Hon, HI

Oct 23/08