Nov.-Dec. 2000

Questions or comments? Email Editor Tony P. Fernandez at:
afernan@techie.com

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FILIPINO WORLD:

Part 4

By Guillermo Gómez Rivera

(Editor’s note: The following piece ‘The Destruction of the Filipino World’ is the fourth and 5th of a seven series of articles on the subject of Spanish in the Philippines and other related issues.  Professor Guillermo Gomez Rivera, a staunch advocate of preserving Spanish and the Hispanic culture in the Philippines, is the president of the Corporación Nacional de Profesores Filipinos de Español (CONAPE) Incorporada.   Gomez Rivera has acquired a reputation as a prolific writer and poet in Spanish. Many regard him as the leader to restore Spanish as one of the official languages of the Philippines and advocates its teaching in all levels of education because of the deep influence of Spanish on the Filipinos.)

3. GENOCIDE

It just so happens that Spanish is also a phonetic language like Tagalog, Visayan and Ilocano.  (Kung ano ang bigkas, siya ang sulat at kung ano ang sulat, siya rin ang bigkas).  Words are simply syllabicated and pronounced as they are written.  And vice-versa.

It so happens also, that English words ARE NOT usually written as they are pronounced, nor are they syllabicated and pronounced as they are written.  In this case, the basic character of English as a language diametrically runs counter to the basic character of Tagalog, Visayan, Ilocano and the native and phonetic character of   all the other native languages and dialects of the Philippines.

To, therefore, force our grade school pupils, to use the English Alphabet in order to mispell Tagalog words, is grievously wrong because it is tantamount to committing a language and cultural genocide, (specifically ethnocide), upon the Tagalog community in particular and the Filipino nation in general. And to do this genocide or, more accurately, ethnocide, against the Tagalog language group, in the guise of teaching, kunu, the Filipino national language, can not only be considered as mere deceit and mere deception but a truly condemnable ethnic cleansing crime against humanity and everything that falls within the concept of human rights. 

This brutally unscientific and deceptive practice of imposing the English, or Taglish, Alphabet in Tagalog, may, perhaps, be justified if the Philippines were converted into another State of the U.S.A.  But, so long as the Philippines is taken as an independent country, this kind of “linguistic” and brutal neocolonial ethnocide is not only an offense against Filipino culture, dignity, sovereignty and the Filipino national identity but an act of aggression and genocide against a weaker people.

Genocide, along with ethnocide, is defined as “the deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group”. The U.S. White Anglo Saxon Protestants, or WASPS, are a class of people that can be held responsible for the genocide perpetrated against the Red Injuns of North America.  And they are the same class of people that invaded the Philippines in 1898.

The extermination, for instance, of the Spanish-speaking Filipino and their 1898 República Filipina is another crime against humanity that can only be attributed to them in their role as Protestant “missionaries” and “English teachers”, aside from that other role as military and economic aggressors.

This genocide committed against the same Spanish-speaking Filipino was successfully repeated during the 1942-45 war with the Japanese through the irresponsible shelling of Intramuros, Ermita, Malate and several other parts of Manila, aside from the unnecessary bombing of almost every old Catholic Church building found in every provincial town outside ravaged Manila. 

The excuse given was their war against the Japanese. Moreover, this genocide against the Spanish-speaking Filipino still goes on with the DECS-CHED policy to abolish the teaching of Spanish as a subject (per CHED’s C.M.O. #59, series of 1996) in their imposed curriculum for both the private and public schools inspite of the very obvious Hispanic heritage of the Filipino in his identity and in his national culture aside from constitutional provisions and laws of the land for Spanish. In their Satanic arrogance, both the referred to U.S. WASPs neocolinizers and their local lackeys in education smugly say that Spanish and the traditions and laws that come with it, are now abolished.

Thus today, and, after this genocide against the Spanish-speaking Filipino has been deemed accomplished with the abolition of the Spanish subjects in Filipino public and private schools, the genocide against the Tagalog ethnic group is now being carried out with the imposition, or ramming in, of the English Alphabet, and a new Taglish morphology, into the Tagalog language itself.  The same treachery is also being quietly done against the Sugbuhanon (Cebuano) and the Ilocano languages.  This savage ramming in of the English Alphabet is being perpetrated to definitely replace the real Balagtas 32-letter Abecedario that is the basis of Tagalog and all the other major native languages of these islands. 

In summary, this anti-Filipino genocide primarily consists, on one hand, in the direct imposition of the English language through the present school system and, on the other hand, in the deliberate debasement of Tagalog, which is the supposed basis of the national language known as Filipino, into a vile pidgin that is now popularly called Taglish.

The promotion, therefore, of Taglish as the Filipino National Language appears as the secret agenda of the authors of this anti-Tagalog, and anti-Bisaya and anti-Ilocano, genocide since the English pidginization of all the major native languages is clearly becoming the goal of what they call today, the Philippine educational system.

With this deliberate, therefore genocidal, pidginization of the Filipino language, there is moreover the obvious goal of keeping the new generations of Filipinos lobotomicaly semi-educated, or mis-educated, ----inspite of the computer----, so that they may become continuing suppliers of cheap manual labor for other “globalized economies” in the form of exported “dollar earning” domestics, entertainers and factory peons, ---since work in their homeland has been made hard to come by on the part of the vast majority of college graduates from the DECS-CHED dictated curricula.

There is, indeed, an undeniably atrocious full-scale genocide being committed against the youth of this country through a so-called, but expensive, “educational process”, that is subtle and gradual. And it is clearly being carried out against the basically Tagalog-speaking mass-base of Filipinos by the present Americanized elite who, as DECS and CHED businessmen “educators”, are shamelessly beholden to U.S. CIA instrumentalities like the Summer Institute of Linguistics.

One of the features of this full-scale genocide is what looks like the deliberate imposition of functional illiteracy upon the Filipino youth in general as shown by their inability to syllabicate Tagalog words in Tagalog.  Syllabication is akin to the ability to spell and read in one’s own language. Since syllabication drills are hardly done in English, because of its unphonetic words, the same fault is being directly imposed upon the Tagalog language itself, thereby condemning the said Filipino youth to functional illiteracy.

As a matter of fact, the pidginization of the referred to three major Filipino languages, and all the other major native languages as well, is apparently the psychological weapon wielded by the mentioned DECS and CHED authorities, to possibly complement the population programs that are likewise being rammed upon the Filipino people for which such programs are also being condemned as genocidal by the Pope, John Paul II, and the Catholic Church in general.

The same pidginization of Tagalog, through the ramming in of the English Alphabet into Tagalog, and as sanctioned by no less than the “Commission on Filipino”, is becoming a good part of what is now termed as the “Culture of Death” being foisted upon the entire Filipino nation by its own education and government leaders who, as collaborators of neocolonialism, belong to the country’s Americanized elite that also economically exploit the lower classes.

4.  THE IMPORTANCE OF THE TAGALOG 32-LETTER ALPHABET TO THE MODERN EDUCATION OF THE FILIPINO YOUTH

What is an Alphabet in relation to a language of its own? The answer is simple enough. An alphabet is the beginning of a language.  Being the beginning, it is its root as a real root is to a living tree. If you poison, or cut, the root of a living tree, the same will dry up and die.

The same thing happens when a language is deprived of its own alphabet.  It will first be debased into a pidgin, or contact vernacular, and die in the long run as a language tool for development and communication.

And this is what is exactly being done, but subtly, to the Tagalog language. It is being slowly killed. And the killing is being carried out by subtly subverting its phonetic system through the lethal injection into its system of the unphonetically inferior English, or Taglish, Alphabet.

Another way, or manner, of killing Tagalog is it’s non-use as the medium of instruction in all school and college subjects; its non-use as the language of the local Courts of Justice; its non-use in the National Legislature and its non-use in the vast majority of official Government communication. All these omissions are real violations of the constitutional provision on Filipino, the national language.

What is worse is that the first subvertor of Tagalog, as the basis of the national language known as Filipino, is the Commission on Filipino itself. It has subverted Tagalog when it officializes the use of the English, or Taglish, Alphabet as shown by Commissioner Ponciano B. P. Pineda’s “English-Filipino” dictionary or his "Diksiyunario English-Filipino" (page vii) as published by the said "Commission on Filipino".

The importance of the 32-letter Balagtás Tagalog Alphabet is being deliberately suppressed by the simple act of ignoring its existence.  The people purposely commiting this crime of treacherous ommission are being paid by a government that collects taxes from Tagalog-speaking persons and entities.  Through the alluded to government commissions and educational departments, these people that are paid by Filipino Tax-Payers are intentionally destroying Tagalog as a language by ignoring its original roots in the mentionrd 32-letter alphabet as they tolerate, if not actually cooperate with, the WASP neocolonialist and Filipino lackeys in the genocidal crime of ramming into Tagalog, ---and, eventually, into Cebuano and Ilocano---, the unphonetic, therefore inferior, English alphabet..

This terrible crime against the national language and patrimony goes unabated and unpunished because we have politicians and government officials who have entirely surrendered their bodies and their souls to the influence and the neocolonial orders of their foreign English-speaking masters that forces them to make loans with their banks and upon granting them said foreign loans unscrupulously dictate upon them what to do with this country including what alphabet the Tagalog language must have.

The unjust suppression of the 32-letter Tagalog Balagtás Alphabet is one of the fundamental causes of the mis-education of the Filipino youth during these competitive times.  Another factor is the forced imposition of English as the medium of instruction in schools and colleges that are for the supposed development of the Filipino youth and people.

The effect of this compulsory neocolonial imposition of English as the medium of instruction, aside from the genocidal ramming into Tagalog of the English alphabet, can already be gleaned in the results of standardized tests for students in both the elementary and secondary schools in the Philippines.

These standardized tests are either called National Elementary Assessment Tests for Grade Six Pupils or National Elementary Achievement Tests and they are being conducted, in most cases, by the National Educational Testing and Research Center. The low performance of Filipino pupils and students all point to the damage upon them caused by the imposition of English as their obligatory medium of instruction. Here are some excerps.

“Two main findings have emerged from studies of student achievement in both elementary and secondary schools in the Philippines."

"First, mastery level of subject matter by grades in all curricular areas are found to be low, generally between 30 percent and 50 percent, compared to the 75 percent learning norm set by the DECS (Department of Education, Culture and sports)."

"An overall picture can be gleaned from the various results of the National Elementary Achievement Tests (NEAT). For instance, the 1993 results show an overall score of 42.2 percent against a target of 75 percent."

“Lowest scores were in language/reading, science/ health and mathematics.” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 21, 1999, School reforms:Mission Impossible? By Elisa Pacqueo-Arreza, U.P. College of Education, Diliman,QC.)

It is to be expected that if students get low in (the English) language and in the reading of that same language, they will naturally score lower in science, health and mathematics since these other subjects are explained in the language (English) they do not really understand which explains why their scores are very low. How can they get a higher score in science and mathematics if they do not grasp, in the first place,  the English language in which these two, or three, other  subject matters are compulsorily explained?

"For instance, tests in science administered in English to 10 year-old pupils under a 1983 study show the Philippines with an average score of 9.5 out of a possible 24 compared to 11.2 for the Hong Kong and Singapore students."

“The failure to keep children in schools and the deteriorating quality of education are old problems.” (Op. Cit.)

In reality, it is the use of English, as the compulsory medium of instruction, that is in deterioration and not education itself. The reason why no education can take place among the Filipino pupils and students is due to the compulsory imposition of English upon them as the medium of instruction. If English were discarded and replaced by Tagalog, the probability of really giving some basic education to the Filipino pupils and students becomes much higher in percentage and average because they do not have to undergo the hardships of a difficult language barrier.  It is compulsory English then that really threatens the very essence of education in the Philippines.

"A survey specifically cited the problem of using English as the language of instruction, incompetent teaching staff, insufficient facilities, English (itself) and science. Despite the educational reforms of the ‘70s and ‘80s, the mission of Philippine education remains unaccomplished."(Op. Cit.)

At the risk of being repeatitious, this unaccomplishment of the aims of Philippine education  points to the fact that:

 “In all levels of education, i.e. elementary, secondary and tertiary, the language of instruction in majority of the subject areas is still English, ----a foreign language in most Filipino households. This fact has resulted in the lack of language proficiency in both English and Filipino among the students, not to mention learning efficiency.”

"The primacy of basic education as a right of every human being and as an essential for the development of a person cannot be argued. Thus, solid and universal elementary education as an anti-poverty strategy is the best and the most logical strategy. What then shall be its thrust to overcome the adverse conditions surrounding Philippine education to avert its further decline?"

"If we want to develop a world class and globally competitive economy, we need to develop a world-class workforce. The way to do it is through quality and relevant education."(Op. Cit.)

But how can “quality and relevant education” work if its content can not be transferred to the pupils and students of the elementary and high school levels because the medium to supposedly effect that transfer of knowledge is not understood?

The answer then to this basic problem of Philippine education is the Tagalog replacement of English as its medium so that the transfer of skills and knowledge can be realized. And Tagalog, to be an apt and adequate medium of instruction needs back its 32-letter alphabet in order to repair the damage wrought upon it by the neocolonial whims and caprices of the sectarian U.S. WASPS that meddle even in its structure to the point of ramming into it the unphonetic, therefore inferior, English Alphabet.

The continued compulsory imposition, on the one hand, of the English language as the medium of instruction in Filipino schools has reached a point where, instead of being a helping boon, it has tragically turned into a bane that is now a huge obstacle to the very life and progress of the Filipino people’s education and government.

In the end, if we were to add to these unaccomplishments of the present system of education, the high number of Filipino children that never attend school or drop out after finishing the elementary level, or the high school level, illitiracy in the Philippines, in both its actual and functional levels, has really grown by leaps and bounds to the detriment of the country’s economic progress.