UrlHTML.com

This essay was posted early Friday morning but has since been removed. Google cache proves the article was there. Why did the article disappear? Language,

Convert article to PDFThis essay was posted early Friday morning but has since been removed. Google cache proves the article was there.

MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.

My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.

In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.

Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.

We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.

It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.

But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.

It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.

Is that what they teach in Ateneo nowadays how to be elitista and to look down on people who do not have the same social status and education.

Tandaan mo 80% ng mga Filipino ay mahihirap at walang oportunista na katulad mo. Kung ganyan kababa ang tingin mo sa sariling lingwahe mo umalis ka na at mag-iba ng bansa. Yang naghuhugas ng pingan mo baka balang araw maging ina ni Manny Pacqiao. And by the way the woman who was linked to him while he was married came from the same school as YOU. So superior!

Stop the plunder of marine life. Save our coral reefs. “A coral reef may save your life one day. Why have we done so little to return the favor?” Find out how you can help.

Why you should vote for SPS at the Globe Tatt Awards | | Save The Philippine SeasSave The Philippine Seas on Shell Horizons Florida Inc , violating our Coral Resources Dev and Conservation Decree?

Blog Watch is a citizen journalism site. We are composed of independent-minded bloggers and social media users that leverage new technology tools to advocate social change and serve as citizens’ watchdog for transparency and good governance. More on Blog Watch?

The promises made by Noynoy Aquino from the time he was running as a candidate to the time of his oath taking as 15th president of the Republic of the Philippines was compiled by ang_mungo. The fact that these all came from his own mouth makes it better than those put together by his staff. As of June 27, 2010, there are 24 promises. If you know of a promise that is not included here and have the appropriate reference, you can also email ang.mungo@gmail.com so that we can add it.

The AQUINO PROMISES TRACKER aims to monitor the promises made by President Benigno Aquino III to the Filipino nation. abs-cbnNEWS.com collected dozens of promises, in topics ranging from taxes to textbooks. The majority of these promises came from Aquino's 10-point agenda, which he outlined during his campaign. Other promises are from his statements during the campaign and during his first days in office. If a new promise is made, it will be included in this site. read more?