English Language Is The Bane Of Philippine Economy And Cultural Life

It is highly probable that policy makers at Washington DC learned from a thorough reading of Dr. Jose Rial's novels; and particularly the Seventh Chapter of El Filibusterismo which served as a guide for them to draft a new imperialist policy. This thesis can be gleaned from the speech by Senator Albert J. Beveridge when the Treaty of Paris was under consideration for ratification in the US Senate.

It can be said that America's consuming desire to retain our country as a territory was expressed by Senator Beveridge when he spoke in the U.S. Senate on January 9, 1900. Said he: "But to hold it (the Philippines) will be no mistake. Our trade henceforth will be with Asia. The Pacific is our ocean. More and more Europe will manufacture the most it consumes. Where shall we turn for consumers of our surplus? Geography answers the question. x x x The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East."

What followed was the shiploads of American SOLDIER-TEACHERS, the so-called Thomasites because they were on board the US ss Thomas, who immediately taught all Filipino children of school age the English language, through memory work, parrot style, and forbade them from speaking our own languages within the school premises. The Washington policy makers were possibly and probably influenced by the thesis of Dr. Jose Rizal concerning language, as lucidly expounded in the Seventh Chapter of El Filibusterismo, as it had been tanslated from the original Spanish by Charles B. Derbyshire. There was the clue on how to enslave the Filipino mind!

Let it not be said that this piece is designed to foment hatred for America; for in truth, we never lacked friends in that great champion of democracy and liberty of men. Senator William Bate, on April 2, 1900, condemned the (1898) Treaty of Paris when he declared that therein was announced and ratified the "un-American doctrine that a whole people, 10 million (Filipinos) in number, could be bought for a money consideration, in total disregard of all those rights heretofore held by all American statesmen as inalienable. " But history has sadly shown that statesmanship, indeed, is too often overwhelmed by commercial greed!

The problem. The use of English language in the administation of government and in the public educational system is a perpetuation of the destruction of our already damaged culture! Only the elitists, or the ilustrados and their foreign cohorts continue to rake the bountiful resources of our country, and the ordinary citizens, the masses, are rendered ignorant and uncomprehending of the laws and ordinances, especially of what transpires in the intricacies of national life, and are always the losers in their routine quest for justice, most especially in the courts of law.

The relatively few who become fairly proficient in tolerable English mostly end up as menials in the employ of multinationals here and abroad. They are beguiled with the epiteth of "modern heroes," even as our womenfolk have become famously known as caregivers and domestic helpers.

The herein proposition is also in line with the admonitions by our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, concerning language as vehemently expounded in the Seventh Chapter of El Filibusterismo. When the country's youth (even so the women of Malolos) were petitioning the Spanish colonial government to teach Spanish language in the schools, our hero wrote as follows:

"X x x. 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! X x x 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.

"X x x. 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 now) will never be the general language of the country, the people will never talk it, because the conception of heir brains and the feelings of their hearts cannot be expessed 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 now), 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! X x x. While Russia enslaves Poland by focing the Russian language upon it, while Gemany prohibits French in the conquered provinces, your government strives to peserve yours, and you in return, a remarkable people under an incomprehensible government, you are tying to despoil yourselves of your own nationality! One and all you forget that while a people preserves his language, it preseves 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 the English translation of the original Spanish by Charles B. Derbyshire.)

PINAKAMAMAHAL AT DAKILANG MGA KABAYAN AT KALAHI:

ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS THE BANE OF PHILIPPINE ECONOMY, AND CULTURAL LIFE.

Ang mga sumusunod ay hango sa karanasan ng isang naglingkod bilang sound system recorder/photograph er nung panahon nina Pangulong Ramon Magsaysay at Carlos P. Garcia (1954 to 1961; at reporter ng Malacañang Press Office na sumubaybay sa mga gawain ng Pangulo ng Pilipinas -- tatlong (3) taon sa panahon ni President Diosdado Macapagal (1962-1965), at sampung (10) taon (1966-1976) kay Pangulong Ferdinand E. Marcos. At hanggang sa nalabi pang mga taon (1977 to 1991) na nagretiro sa paglilingkod sa gobyerno (Hunyo 15, 1991) nung ang ating pinuno ay si Pangulong Corazon Aquino.

Ang mga bagay na nakasaad ay mapapatunayan / masusundan din ng masugid na mambabasa sa mga sumusunod:

1. Sa kolum na "STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER" ni Luis D. Beltran, sa -- The Evening News, Friday 24 November 1967;

2. Sa kolum na "Inside Malacañang" ni Celso G. Cabrera, in The Manila Chronicle, Wednesday --June 24, 1970;

3. In the article -- 'English only' policy strengthens US stranglehold on RP economy -- sa page 7, BULLETIN TODAY, Mon., June 3, 1985.

AT MAI-UUGNAY DIN SA MGA SUMUSUNOD:

ONE. Every official transaction and/or decision arrived at in the Study Room of the President of the Philippines in Malacañang, as well as in most government departments and offices, is dutifully transmitted/ relayed to the appropriate desk at the PENTAGON, minute-by-minute, by clandestine moles and observers in government offices and elsewhere, and speedily received in Washington, even way ahead of the Philippine government's agency/office/ entity concerned.

If RP government's moves are perceived as detrimental or contrary to US interests, then immediate actions are made to thwart the same!

TWO. All government processes in RP are tailor-made for the ease and comfort of USA's entities in this country. Conversely and on the contrary, the big majority of our own citizens are unknowing and ignorant of the same.

THREE. A very small percentage (only five to 15%) of Filipino students will truly have real need to learn the English language. So many of them become school drop-outs, and inadvertently end up as economic burdens and social outcasts / problems of the government. It results in too much waste, waste, and squandered resources of our country's economy.

FOURTH. Every peso spent for the study and teaching of English is a peso deducted and misappropriated out of Philippine public money which should otherwise be allocated for the development, promotion and propagation of the national language.

FIFTH. The vicious system merely caters to the convenience of American media and USA's clandestine opeators in RP (instead of their paying for translation services), and to which our local radio-tv and news publications and individual subscribers religiously remit valuable money, and which consequently deplete our foreign exchange capabilities.

SIXTH. For the importation of English DICTIONARIES alone -- not to mention the required textbooks and references in most colleges and universities -- the annual loss to our county's economy is atrociously and heavily unquantifiable.

SEVENTH. Both official and private wranglings among protagonists in and outisde of government and private entities on the wisdom, or unwisdom, of retaining English in our systems constitute valuable man-hours losses to our country's economic resource. All of which amount to a corresponding loss of resources and capabilities; and neglect in the development of indigenous talents for native literature.

EIGHTH. Obstinately retaining English language in our government communications system will insure the permanence of our international status as the BASKET CASE, if not the GARBAGE DUMP of Asia!

NINTH. All progressive countries around us, and all over the world, educate their young in their native language.

TENTH. The country's justice system is continually tailor- made to favor the interests of the country's ilustrado class, with the resultant neglect of the welfare of the poor and unschooled segment of the populace.

For the assiduous contemplation by our Brethren and countrymen who still value the interest and welfare of our Motherland and the generations yet to come.

Irineo Perez Goce -- a.k.a. Ka Pule2
leonidasagbayani@ yahoo.com
kapule_2@yahoo. com
renlita_010357@ yahoo.com
Lipa City, Batangas, PHILIPPINES