W h e w.. L a n g u a g e !
You ask for equal rights, the Hispanization (Americanization this time) of your customs, and you don't see that what you are begging for is suicide, the destruction of your nationality, the annihilation of your fatherland, the consecration of tyranny!
What will you be in the future? A people without character, a nation without liberty... everything you have will be borrowed, even your very defects! To what are you tending now, with your instruction in Castillan (English at present), a pretension that would be ridiculous were it not for its deplorable consequences! You wish to add one more language to the forty odd that are spoken in the islands, so that you may understand one another less and less.
"You are letting yourselves be deceived by big words and never go to the bottom of things to examine the results in their final analysis... Spanish (English this time) will never be the general language of the country, the people will never talk it, because the conception of their brains and the feelings of their hearts cannot be expressed in that language; each people has its own tongue, as it has its own way of thinking! What are you going to do with Castillan (English), the few of you who will speak it?
Kill off your originality, subordinate your thoughts to other brains, and instead of freeing yourselves, make yourselves slaves indeed! Nine-tenths of those of you who pretend to be enlightened are renegades to your country! He among you who talks that language neglects his own in such a way that he neither writes nor understands it, and how many have I not seen who pretended not to know a single word of it! While Russia enslaves Poland by forcing the Russian language upon it, while Germany prohibits French in the conquered provinces, your government strives to preserve yours, and you in return, a remarkable people under an incredible government, you are trying to despoil yourselves of your own nationality!
One and all you forget that while a people preserves his language, it preserves the marks of its liberty, as a man preserves his independence while he holds to his own way of thinking. Language is the thought of the peoples..." From translation by Charles B. Derbyshire.
Since the time of President Manuel Quezon and until 1997, August 13 to 19 every year, except during the Japanese occupation, was observed as National Language Week. In his time President Fidel Ramos proclaimed August every year as National Language Month. Such periods were observed perfunctorily, oftentimes devoting a day or two to some sort of cultural activities to extol the Filipino language, to humor the lovers of Inang Wika.
The week, and later, the month, have served merely as a curse of Sisyphus on our country's socio-cultural and politico-economic life. The succession of disquieting events from the several EDSA charades, the Oakwood "mutiny" and the Philippine Plaza standoff had only proved that we, as a sovereign nation, are still going nowhere!
The running controversies among top government officials have brought into clear focus the national dilemma that still confounds the Filipino nation. We have been lost in the labyrinth of socio-economic errors, continually hounded by foreign wheedlings, and blinded by cultural obfuscation.
A meticulous re-examination of our prevailing systems is, indeed, in high order. We need to scrutinize and reassess existing policies to determine why, despite dedicated efforts by our leaders we still do not seem to see the unblazed path which will lead our country and people towards real socio-political stability, and economic prosperity. All indigenous contending forces in our country, ever since this writer can remember, have hoped for real and lasting peace and progress for our people and the generations yet to come. Such had been the dream of Rizal, Bonifacio, Mabini, Quezon, and all other past leaders and the host of many little known and unknown (including pseudo patriots! he he), and unlamented freedom-loving citizens of this country!
However, national peace, progress and prosperity remain as elusive as ever. Have we asked ourselves candidly: What forces, or interests, could really be working against the ultimate fulfillment of our national hopes and aspirations? Is it the will of God, as a highly respected and idolized church prelate once asserted? Could it be because our people -- our leaders principally -- think, act, and pray at cross purposes and so the Almighty conveniently leaves us to ourselves as He gets confused as to whose prayers to grant, that the Philippine nation is in such disarray?
Many think and believe that the downfall and flight of President Marcos in 1986 was an act of God. Was the assassination of Senator Ninoy Aquino not also according to God's will? One might ask! And so, we are all the more confused.
Another thing: have we ever considered what motivations could be truly behind the very "special relations" that the USA, our former colonizer has ingrained into the Filipino psyche? Have we ever mulled on the questions why, though politically sovereign --on paper at least -- the Philippines must yet remain, by all deviousness and cunning, an economic vassal, a raw-material- source-and- market-preserve, a cultural votary and intellectual apologist of the Great White Brother?
It is high time that our national leaders -- especially in the law-(policy) -making body of the country -- should realize that the USA had left us with a three-fold scheme to tie down the Filipino psyche into perpetual subservience to and dependence on American interests. We ought not blame the American people on this account. In fact we ought to emulate the patriotism of our American friends. But this should not deter any Filipino leader, nay, every citizen! from thinking and working for the overriding interests of our country and people, vis-a-vis the interests of any other foreign nation.
What is good for the USA may not necessarily be good for the RP. On this basis must rest, and the same must be the starting point of limitations to the long cherished (or long abused?) "special relations."
The three-fold (Washington) scheme aforesaid are:
1. Prevent the continuity of any (whatever party or group) strong RP national leadership that does not toe the US policies.
2. Thwart at all cost, or delay at any price any move to terminate any US-RP special relations (as the continuing existence of JUSMAG), the Visiting Forces Agreement, and the like; and,
3. Counteract by all means, fair or foul, any and all attempts that would undermine or weaken the influence if not dominance of American culture in the Philippine systems of educational instructions and in the conduct of government.
Of the three, the last is the basic and the most portentous. The US colonizers, even during the Commonwealth era, had assiduously maintained that an American official always headed our country's educational system.
It needs be recognized by those who aspire for national leadership that the imposition of a colonizer's language is an instrument of prolonged -- if not perpetual -- cultural and socio-economic colonization. That exactly adheres to our national hero's admonitions in the matter of language!
That was what America did when, at the start of US occupation and colonization of this country, the famous (or infamous?) Thomasites -- the shipload (aboard the ss Thomas) of soldier-teachers -- were sent to the Philippines to insure that every Filipino child of school age should learn the English language. The speaking of our native languages/dialects was strictly prohibited in the schools -- (which is still true in some schools until now!). The more intelligent and promising among the first products of American instruction were taken as pensionados to US schools, to develpop them as future leaders in the Philippine educational system, and in the goverment.
It was a very clever device of cultural/intellectual conquest!
And for as long as the English language remains supreme in our government-administ rative and educational systems, we can never consider our nation as truly independent. We remain a socio-cultural and economic dependency of the USA. The preponderance of English language in our educational and state-government administrative systems has brought about our country's socio-economic and politico-cultural decadence.
Renato Constantino, in his "Recto Lecture" before the founding congress of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (Feb. 8, 1967) said that any national leader who desires closest communication with the people should use the language of his country. "This is imperative, for mass experience can best be assimilated when one speaks the language of the people, and theoretical postulates can be more effectively communicated to them through their own tongue." At the same time, this develops our national language and this development contributes to national unity. (Emphasis supplied).
It is not generally known, but the late Senator Claro M. Recto, also according to Constantino, had complete plans to launch a nationwide campaign on Filipinism, and to found a national language newspaper upon his return from a sentimental trip to Spain following his retirement from politics. However, a suppressed news account indicated that a powerful electronic beam was focused on his heart by means of a camera while being asked exasperating questions during a press conference in Rome. A very healthy Recto succumbed mysteriously to a heart attack, thus cutting short his sentimental journey to Madrid, and putting to rest his planned Filipino periodical. And the Philippines lost a great nationalist!
When Ramon Magsaysay was our President he ordered the tanslation of our Philippine National Anthem (in Englsh) to Lupang Hinirang/Bayang Magiliw (in Filipino). He also caused the translation of English military commands to Filipino. More importantly, he instituted the delivering of his acceptance speech in the native language whenever a new ambassador was presenting credentials as his country's envoy to the Philippines. The "Guy" also died in a mysterious plane crash on March 17, 1957, which the US-AID reported as caused by "metal fatigue"!
In early 1986 the US government was still, at least offically, very much behind the leadership of then President Ferdinand Marcos. And then, sometime in February that year, why was there a sudden withdrawal of Washington support behind Marcos? Except among incisive thinkers, that phenomenon has remained a riddle.
It would be hard to believe, but it is highly probable that the last straw which broke Uncle Sam's patience on Marcos was the latter's memorandum dated January 17, 1986 to the Minister of Education and Culture (and) All other membes of the Cabinet. Contents of that Memo, which never saw the official light of day and was therefore not implemented, are as follows:
"You are directed to create the conditions in your respective ministries and other instrumentalities of the Government for the optimal promotion and development of Filipino as a national language.
"Further the Minister ot the Budget is directed to cooperate with the University of the Philippines in realizing the endowment of a Translation Center for the translation of major literary works into Filipino and Asian languages as well as translation of classical works into Filipino."
That memorandum was officially transmitted on 20 January 1986 through a covering memo by then Presidential Executive Assistant Juan C. Tuvera, to MEC Minister Jaime C. Laya and others concerned. It is safe to assume that such vital correspondence might, or not, have reached the intended addressees, and/or possibly intercepted by CIA surrogates in our government bureaucracy. To the Washington policy makers that act of a former Asian spokesman who, 20 years earlier, held the joint session of the US Congress spellbound when he delivered in excellent English -- "An Asian Message to America -- Trustee of Civilization, " was an act of sacrilege, a fatal error, if not a direct affront to the IMF policy of insuring that English should remain as the Philippine language of administration and for instruction in the Filipino classrooms.
It would be for our country's enduring welfare and interest that our Congress enact a law declaring Visayan, Ilocano (and/or any other major Philippine language) as ALSO official languages of the country, and that after a certain period of time, English shall cease to be an official language, and become as some other major languages of the world, be required for study in the high schools, and an optional subject in college.
It should also become necessary for Filipino journalists and owners of periodicals to rethink their language policy in the matter of reportage and publications, if they still value the meaning of patriotism, or love of Motherland.
irineo perez goce -- a.k.a. Ka Pule2
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