The unifying language

The shift to Pilipino as the primary medium of instruction in our schools has made the quality of education of our students and school standards plummet.

The Philippines was once preferred by foreign students over other countries as a place to acquire college degrees, because of our high educational standards.

Touted as the third largest English-speaking country in the world (next to the United States and the United Kingdom), the Philippines has lost its reputation as a country where students were among the most intelligent in the world.

A study in 2019 showed Filipino students having an average intelligence quotient or IQ of 86 points, the lowest in Southeast Asia.

Singapore had the highest IQ among Southeast Asian students, with 108 points as their average.

Students in Indonesia and Myanmar were slightly above ours, with an average of 87 points. An IQ above 140 points is considered genius-level. The bases for the study were reading comprehension, mathematics, and science.

Our students fell from the highest perch in IQ because our schools have de-emphasized English as the medium of instruction.

While many countries are encouraging their students to make English their second language, we are trying to downgrade English in favor of Pilipino.

Many countries now make English as their second language among their students so they can become proficient in science and math subjects. Science and mathematics are mostly taught in English. This is the reason our students are losing out to their counterparts in other countries in Asia.

English is one of the world’s most spoken languages. Airline pilots in most parts of the world communicate with traffic controllers on the ground in English.

Countries whose major industry is tourism compel their hotel, restaurant, and other hospitality staff to speak at least a modicum of English to understand English-speaking tourists.

Many of our students and college graduates are inarticulate in English because their teachers were inarticulate in the language as well.

Our teachers were told to teach their students a mixture Pilipino and English. This neither-here-nor-there situation in the medium of instruction in our schools has resulted in producing dull students.

The Tagalog and English mix in our communication has led to Taglish – a combination of Tagalog and English – and is now accepted in daily conversation and even in official communication.

Words like inalert (made alert), nareyp (raped), naleyt (came in late), tumambling (tumbled) have joined the Taglish lexicon.

Our text messages on our phones are full of Taglish words. Example: “Sori, naforget ko na ang neym niya (I’m sorry I forgot his/her name).

Ultra-nationalists and Tagalog purists are to blame for our pidgin English for directing teachers to speak to their students in Pilipino or other major dialects interspersed with English; instead of straight English or straight Pilipino.

The Pilipino language is a conglomeration of major Philippine dialects – Tagalog, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Bicolano, and Bisaya; each dialect is a language unto itself.

The Bisaya language has several dialects distinct from one another like Sugbuano, Ilonggo, Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, and Waray. A Bisaya who speaks Waray can’t understand Ilonggo and vice versa.

This has made teaching Pilipino in schools challenging for teachers belonging to different ethnic groups.

Even the spelling of the national language is an issue, whether it should be called Pilipino or Filipino.

Senators Robin Padilla and Lito Lapid, both former movie stars, advocate Pilipino as the medium of communication in the halls of the Senate and government offices. They forget that our laws are written in English.

Pilipino is relatively a new language. President Manuel L. Quezon, who mandated Pilipino as the country’s national language in 1937, was articulate in both Spanish and English.

Before the Second World War, Filipinos – including those living in the mountains – spoke English well. The American colonizers supplanted Spanish in favor of their language in schools and offices.

Pilipino started easing out English as our common language during the nationalistic fervor of the 1960s. Students in that period of unrest in college and university campuses denounced the Vietnam War in the US and “American imperialism” in the Philippines.

Filipino student activities, prompted by their leftist professors, bullied fellow students who spoke English.

Even Manila Mayor Antonio Villegas (1962-1971) got into the act. He encouraged his constituents and city hall employees to use Pilipino in their official communication.

Villegas coined ludicrous words such as gatpuno (mayor), maharnilad (city hall), lagusnilad (underpass) and kabatas (policeman).

Pilipino in its purest form sounds funny. My cousin from Davao Oriental, who enrolled in a Manila university, tried to borrow a book from his female classmate on their first day in class.

“Binibini, puwede ko bang mahiram ang iyong aklat (May I borrow your book)?” he said.

“Ang korni mo naman. Taga saan ka bang planeta (You sound corny. What planet are you from)?” said the girl.

My cousin learned Pilipino, a subject in elementary and high school, in his hick town of Baganga.

My cousin, who speaks fluent English, said to me later, “I should have spoken to her in English because she would have understood me perfectly.”

I said earlier that Pilipino is a relatively new language in the country, which has numerous languages and dialects.

Let’s be like Singapore, a melting pot of many nationalities, where English is the lingua franca in the streets, government offices and the courts. It is also the unifying language of the multi-lingual, multi-racial Singaporean population.

Being a multi-ethnic and multilingual society like Singapore, the Philippines should have English as the unifying language as well.

Let Pilipino be spoken in our homes and in the streets.