LANGUAGES
Since the Presidential elections of 1969 when then senator Sergio "Serging" Osmeña Jr. ran a rigorous presidential campaign against President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Cebu City has been an "Oppositionist City" and because Serging was defeated (the Osmeñas claimed that Marcos cheated him), Cebu City has learned to live with minimal support coming from the national government, especially during the Martial Law years.
This changed 20 years ago during the EDSA Revolt. Tita Cory and Doy Laurel were holding a huge rally at Fuente Osmeña when the news came that the EDSA Revolt had started. The rest is history and Cebu City was then expected to finally become pro-administration. However, under Tita Cory’s presidency, she told Cebuano leaders that if Cebu had survived the drought of the Marcos years, Cebu would survive again under her because she needed to give more help to other provinces.
But what broke the proverbial camel’s back was when Tita Cory ordered "Pilipino" to become the medium of instruction in our schools and be used in the official communications of government agencies. Of course you know by now that "Pilipino" is actually 99.9 percent Tagalog. Former Cebu governor Emilio "Lito" Osmeña filed a case in court to stop the implementation of the Executive Order. Thus, Cebu City continued its role as an opposition city, until the 2004 elections when President Arroyo (GMA) got a million vote margin over her nearest rival.
Last Friday, the so-called Genuine Opposition (GO) held a rally in the South District of Cebu City as a "Show of Force". Well, only a measly 1,000 people showed up in Llamas St. Punta Princesa and only two GO candidates showed up – former senators John Osmeña and Nikki Coseteng. Because Sonny Osmeña couldn’t hold his tongue and openly showed his dismay to rally organizer Atan Guardo, who is running against incumbent South District Rep. Tony Cuenco, Guardo has called for the junking of Sonny Osmeña. But it is not the fault of Sonny "O"; rather it is the fault of the organizer. Once and for all, it shows that Cebu City will be pro-administration and you can mark my words on this after the elections.
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Talking about the issue of Cebu filing a case against the imposition of "Pilipino" during the days of Tita Cory, how times have changed since. Under the administration of Mrs. Arroyo, we have finally awakened to the reality that we have lost our precious advantage as one of the the biggest nation of English Speakers next to the USA. So under GMA, she ordered the use of English in our schools and as our second language, thus giving Filipinos a chance to recover what they have lost in the last 20 years and be globally competitive. More importantly, it gives the other spoken languages in this country a chance to be called part and parcel of the Filipino language.
Last Saturday, I read on page 6 of The Star that a group of Filipino writers, academicians and linguists who call themselves the Wika ng Kultura at Agham, Inc. (WIKA) had filed a petition before the Supreme Court asking it to stop the Department of Education (DepEd) from implementing Executive Order 210, which prescribes English as the second language of this country.
WIKA as the report goes, is trying to restore our "damaged culture" which has been directly injured by the order of the President because they say, "the use of a foreign language as medium of instruction has negative repercussions on national identity, love of country and pride of being Filipino." What a devious way to preserve "kuno" our so-called Filipino culture. But is this really the reason why they want English to be scrapped?
If you ask me, the people behind WIKA belong to the so-called "ultra nationalists" who insist that the language Filipinos use should only be Tagalog. Yes, WIKA is only promoting Tagalog nationalism, which by now our readers have learned, is totally detrimental to all the spoken languages of the Philippines. This is the reason why Chabacano, Illonggo, Waray, Karay-a and the many other spoken languages in this country today have began its journey to extinction because of the imposition of Tagalog as the so-called national language, which if you still didn’t know, doesn’t yet exist as a national language!
Let me remind you that when the Chinese junks of Cheng Ho arrived in this archipelago, they found a variety of cultures. They found people in Luzon (they dubbed it Luzuo), they found Cebuanos in Cebu, and yes they also found Muslims in Mindanao and a thousand-year-old culture in Butuan. One thing that the Chinese never found in these shores were Filipinos! The Yanks gave that to us! Now people in the south ask: By what right should another ethnic group impose their language upon others who do not speak Tagalog?
I have a short letter coming from Dr. Jose Dacudao, National President of Save Our Languages through Federalism (SOLFED) on this issue.
Bobit: WIKA makes its move and tries to kill all languages of the Philippines; from the Point of View of Visayans and Other Non-Tagalogs’ The culturally chauvinistic group called WIKA has just filed a case in the Philippine Supreme Court aimed at making Tagalog (honey-coated as ‘Filipino’) the main medium of instruction in all Philippine schools.
If they succeed completely, we die. The Visayan people will die. No more Ilonggos, no more Cebuanos, no more Warays, and so on. And so every other non-Tagalog ethnic group will die. No more Ilocanos, Kapampangans, Pangasinense, Bicolanos, and so on. Language extinction will be gradual, not easily noticeable on a day-to-day basis, but will be certain. Smaller groups will go first, while the larger groups like Cebuano will be gone in 300 years.
No ethno-linguistic group can resist such social pressure, requiring all of its youth through their formative years to learn, write, speak, and think in a language not its own. May all Visayans resist this move, wherever you are. May all non-Tagalog Filipinos resist this move. It would be the least you could do for your native ethnic people and culture. May all Filipinos, including enlightened Tagalogs, who would like to preserve the cultural diversity of the Philippines, resist this move. Thanks… Dr. Jose Dacudao, MD."
SOLFED has this slogan, "When you lose a language you lose a culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art". (By Kenneth Hale, Linguistics professor at MIT). How true! I just hope that our Supreme Court will not help in the total destruction of all Filipino languages and help preserve our cultures.
