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Filipino: The National Language of Education
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promotes cultural and artistic development: conserves and promotes the nation’s historical and cultural
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Contents
Introduction:
What the KWF is Hard at Work For, 5
and Not Against
Appendices
A. Department Order No. 25, s. 1974
“Implementing Guidelines for the Policy on Bilingual 41
Education”
—Bonifacio P. Sibayan
The Intellectualization of Filipino
— Joshua Fishman
INTRODUCTION:
What the KWF is Hard at Work For,
and Not Against
by Virgilio S. Almario
This is our first publication entirely in English because the Komisyon sa Wikang
Filipino would like to address especially its friends who are more at home in
reading English text.
At the same time, even our educators tend to misinterpret the law. In
the implementation of the K-12 and the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual
Education curriculum (MTB-MLE), for instance, the first act of some college
educators and administrators was to either wipe out or degrade Filipino and
other subjects.
That is why KWF is hard at work, again not against English, but
to restore Filipino as the primary language of instruction. We are currently
campaigning to set aright the whole educational curriculum by harmonizing
content, or establishing a common, consistent, and quality content in Filipino
as well as English. If we must exert all effort to enhance proficiency in English,
equally we must enhance proficiency and competence in Filipino. Again, it is
not KWF’s mandate to work against English; its mandate is to develop and
substantiate Filipino as the National Language.
For many advocates of Filipino, the challenge has always been the
procurement and integration of entries from the native languages into a
continually developing national language. Efforts and initiatives by the Filipinas
These are some of the ways the national language must be cultivated
as an efficient language of communication and instruction in the various fields
of knowledge or areas of academic discipline.
In the same direction, KWF now is actively engaged in the art and
science of translation and in training competent practitioners through an
intensive certificate course. The purpose is to serve the needs of the various
languages of the Philippines especially in the use of these languages in the
MTB-MLE curriculum, as well in the translation requirements of government
communications, business, the diaspora and diplomacy.
Virgilio S. Almario
Chairman
National Artist for Literature
The komisyon sa wikang filipino (kwf), the sole government agency tasked with
the propagation and development of Filipino, the national and official language,
and the other native languages of the Philippines, takes a firm exception to the
proposed legislation, House Bill (HB) 5091 “An Act to Enhance the Use of
English as the Medium of Instruction in the Educational System” introduced
by Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Unconstitutional
The latest neurological research7 states that “young children all around
the world can and do acquire two languages simultaneously. In fact, in many
parts of the world, being bilingual is the norm rather than an exception…
[and] There is evidence that being bilingual makes the learning of a third
language easier.”
7 Ramirez, Naja Ferjan, “Why the baby brain can learn two languages at the
same time.” http://theconversation.com/why-the-baby-brain-can-learn-two-languag-
es-at-the-same-time-57470
On the other hand, staring us from the other side of the issue is
another fallacy that must be closely considered: HB 5091 states that English
proficiency is closely linked to quality education and global competitiveness.
If that is so, then why did our Asian neighbors, such as China, South Korea,
Malaysia, and Japan, of course, economically and otherwise grow by leaps and
bounds, while using their own native tongues?
Language Policy
KWF, by mandate and function, has long been aware of the history
of policy and research on the issue of language and has taken into serious
consideration the works of leading Filipino linguistics experts especially on
the issue of intellectualization, or the use of the national language in various
domains of knowledge and power.
Intellectualization
Since 2013, despite its severe handicap on resources, KWF has pursued
broad-based campaigns for language standardization and nationalization, and
modernization and intellectualization. As of this writing, KWF has published
various references and manuals on language, literature, and the social and
natural sciences in the Filipino language under the program Aklat ng Bayan.
The translation of world classics and Filipino literature in English or regional
languages, plus technical and laymen’s books in the various sciences, is an
ongoing activity involving the country’s best writers who have been engaged to
undertake the translations.
Lingua Franca
And that language is what the majority of our people speak together
with their native regional languages. And this continually evolving lingua
franca is called Filipino. Not really the Taglish as our veteran linguistics expert
Bonifacio Sibayan described in one of his older essays, but the Filipino that is
continually being enriched by entries from the native or regional languages, or
the different accents they speak it within their provinces, regions, residences,
domains of life, knowledge, and power.
How to communicate with the nation at large then? Or how does the
nation communicate with itself with its diversity of languages and cultures?
There is always the preferred English of government, business, and the middle
class. But there is also the modernizing Filipino that enables our youth to grasp
or form clearer ideas, teach them critical or analytical thinking in a more familiar
language, and more importantly, make them stronger and more capable citizens,
consumers, and functioning participants in the economy. In other words, a
familiar language more effectively prepares them to participate in the global
arena.
11 Fishman, Joshua, “What do you lose when you lose your language?” in Stabi-
lizing Indigenous Languages, p. 81.
The BEP was the initiative of then National Board of Education (NBE),
contained in NBE Resolution No. 73-7, s. 1973, upon the recommendation
of a Technical Committee. This in response to a growing sentiment for a
“nationalistic education” from among student and social activists by installing
Pilipino as the MOI in the school system (Gonzalez 1990, in Bautista 1996, 330).
Toward this initiative the Education Department took a more definitive step by
issuing Department Order No. 25, s. 1974, entitled “Implementing Guidelines
Under Department Order No. 25, the bilingual schemes allocates 80% of
the subjects in the curriculum to Filipino MOI, and the remaining 20% to English
MOI. Regional languanges would continue to function as auxiliary languanges.
After a decade from 1974, the bilingual policy was expected to manifest in the skills
of teriary level graduates “to pass examinations in Eng;ish AND/OR (emphasis
mine) Pilipino for the practice of their professions.” However not until 1985 that
the BEP impact wouldbe evaluated and the results presented to re-direct the further
impelementation of the language policy revised according to the findings of the BEPE.
How did the BEP impact on the learning process of Filipino students
after eleven years of implementation?
Major Findings
(1) The BEP created a widening gap between Tagalogs and non-Tagalogs in
the educational system. “The formula for success in Philippine education
is to be a Tagalog living in Metro Manila, which is highly urbanized, and
BEP, p. 5 studying in a private school considered excellent” (Ibid., p. 333);
(2) Learning in Pilipino benefited from teachers’ use and knowledge of, and
training in English, including other resources, which were in English, used
in the classroom;
Revisiting the BEP 25
(3) Pilipino language skills transferred to English increasingly, and peaked
in Grade 6, i.e., a strong evidence of a genuine developing bilingualism;
(5) Good schools mostly in Metro Manila and urban areas performed
excellent job in teaching English and Pilipino;
(6) Pilipino had been accepted as the symbol for unity and national identity,
and as a national language; however, English was acknowledged to be
necessary for economic reasons alongside Pilipino both as instructional
media;
(8) Parents put high hopes on the positive impact of the bilingual policy,
even as while all other groups, governmental and non-governmental alike,
saw the “deterioration in English competence”;
(9) The Filipino community attributed the achievement gap in English and
Pilipino more to the post-war conditions of schools and the educational
system, in general, and not to the implemented language policy;
(10) Pilipino was foreseen to be the scholarly discourse in the near future,
except not exclusively in the legal domain;
In her report, the need for the BEP in the tertiary level “was not a
priority… considering that only slightly more than one third of the schools in this
study implemented it” ( Gonzalez and Sibayan 1988, 97). For those schools that
implemented the BEP, she further stated that there was a lack of a systematized
implementation plan resulting in a mere “perfunctory compliance with the MECS
order” (Ibid.). Opinions and attitudes of the survey participants who were
administrators, faculty members and students showed consensus that Pilipino was
a symbol of unity and national identity, and using it as medium of instruction to
symbolize nationalism need not be a problem.
On the variables perception and attitudes toward the BEP, the three
groups revealed differing results. The parents group acknowledged the improved
proficiency of their children’s use of both Pilipino and English. They further noted
that their children in the elementary and secondary had better skills in Pilipino than
they had at the same age. This observation though could not be easily attributed
While the Sevilla study revealed data that did not indicate a positive
outcome of the BEP from the perceptions and attitudes of parents, GOs and
NGOs, there was optimism attached to the BEP program for its continued
implementation to achieve its goal of bilingual competence for the nation. The
report said that the greater part of the country “…has come to the point of
accepting Pilipino as the Filipino’s linguistic symbol of unity and identity” and
that the respondents “foresee that the next ten years will see its (Pilipino) domains
expanding and its increasing use even in classrooms.”
Following their own advocacies, both the LGs and the NLGs had their
own contributions to the BEP one way or another. Through teacher trainings,
seminar-workshops and publications, they were able to put into their agenda the
development of Pilipino and English. For Pilipino, both groups were optimistic of
its continued expanding domains in Philippine society and as a unifying symbol.
For English, while both groups recognized its function “for international relations
and wider communication and for science and technology,” there was also the
perception of its “diminishing role in Philippine life.” Nonetheless, both groups
perceived the need for “English AND Pilipino for functioning effectively in
Philippine society even at the highest levels” (Ibid., p. 142).
and national language leaders, would have been the Philippine government and its
relevant agencies, like the education department, local government agencies and
civil service institutions.
In DECS Order No. 52, Sec. 2.b (2-4), the 1987 BEP was clear in its
goals for the Filipino language, namely, among others:
To oversee all these policy requirements, the Order ensured the creation
of a Bilingual Education Committee consisting of several institutional bodies and
officials, namely:
Given all of the above salient features of the 1987 BEP and its
implementing guidelines, and even early on in the 1974 BEP, it can be said
using a cliché, that all roads were to lead to the Filipinization of the educational
system—an envisioned outcome consistent with the national development goals
of the government and the National Board of Education Resolution No. 73-7.
Purportedly, this would fulfill the aspiration of the Filipino nation “to have its
citizens possess skills in Filipino to enable them to perform their functions and
duties as Filipino citizens and in English in order to meet the needs of the country
in the community of nations” (Ibid., p. 166).
Yet this nationalist vision was not meant to be.
After close to five decades now from the time the bilingual policy was
issued in 1974, up until the new MTB-MLE language policy has taken its place, the
educational system continues to yield a “mis-education” for the Filipino youth.
Like the problems that plagued the 1974 BEP as revealed by the Gonzalez and
Sibayan evaluation studies, the 1987 BEP suffered the same impasse. Without
mentioning the systemic weaknesses of unfulfilled support mechanisms, such as
half-hearted teacher trainings, ill-revised curriculum plans, ill-prepared teaching
techniques and instructional materials, the Bilingual Education Committee was
nowhere to be found, if at all it existed and functioned to undertake primarily the
monitoring of the implementation plan. Neither were the tertiary institutions and
other governmental agencies tasked to directly implement the development and
intellectualization of Filipino worked hard core to achieve it.
Revisiting the BEP 37
Four years later the continuing sad plight of a deteriorating Philippine
education would be confirmed by an 11-month study reported by the Congressional
Commission on Education to Review and Assess Philippine Education (or,
EDCOM). It noted that similar problems prevailed since the Monroe Survey of
1925 up until the EDCOM survey in 1991 for over 65 years. Among its findings,
the bilingual policy was found as “distressing the quality of learning.” Expectedly,
it recommended “flexibility in the use of the Bilingual Policy in the elementary
grades” and instructed teachers to use the dominant language of the community
(https://www.slideshare.net).
At the same time, the whole foregoing history of the failure of the BEP
of 1974-2008 only serves to underscore the fact that the development Filipino as
primary and ultimate MOI had suffered more from the said failures. The teaching
and learning of English, on the other hand, had from the start been more equipped
and accoutered within the educational system, both by reason that it is the foreign
language being introduced and through the misplaced—and up to now, colonially-
minded—bias for its importance, although its importance in the global arena is
never denied. Consequently, the teaching and learning of Filipino, still aspirant of
Appendix A, p-1