At our peril

Japan and China speak relatively little English. Yet, they are more economically progressive and more politically independent than the Philippines, which is said to be the third largest English-speaking country in the world.

This begs the question why the Philippines, for all its proficiency in the English language, is less technologically advanced, less industrialized and less economically self-reliant than its non-English speaking neighbors. Our knowledge of English should have given us a competitive edge over our neighbors.

English should have opened doors for us to deeper and broader knowledge of science and the liberal arts embedded in many English books, publications and internet postings not available in any of our dialects. Yet we have non-English-speaking developed Asian countries like Korea and Japan learning English from us.

Exactly what has English been for us? Is it for the bragging rights of refusing an interpreter during beauty pageants only to give embarrassingly feeble answers? Is it for posting traffic signs in English that are mainly disregarded by jeepney, taxi, tricycle and private car drivers who read little or no English?

My suspicion is that some Filipinos subconsciously (sociologically speaking, meaning, without malice) use English for its snob value. In Spanish colonial times, landlords used fluent Spanish to boost their superiority over broken-Spanish-and-mainly-dialect-speaking tenants. It is now English that more educated upwardly mobile Filipinos use subconsciously to blow airs of superiority towards fellow Filipinos who can barely manage a few words of English.

In any case, there seems to exist a certain breed of Filipinos who equate poor English with inferior intelligence. They have made English into a bar to the participation by ordinary workers and small farmers in our democratic processes that the political and economic elite conduct in English.

Thus, Sen. Manny Pacquiao feels constrained to speak English in order to fully belong to society’s elite like a senator should be. But note how snobbish peers and non-peers pounce on him not so much for his weak grip on issues as for his poor command of English.

This is pure intellectual snobbery. English will always be a second language to us, hence does not measure our mental acumen.

It was gladdening, therefore, to hear that the City Council of Talisay recently conducted their session exclusively in Cebuano. I hope this was not a one-shot deal as this should encourage non-English speaking concerned citizens to participate in deliberations on their welfare.

We can presume only at our peril that citizens who speak English have better ideas for the country than ordinary citizens who do not.