Presentation

draft/Please do not quote.

Teaching young learners their mother tongue: Strengthening culture,
building identities

Jimmy Balud Fong, Ph.D.
Department of Communication
College of Arts and Communication
University of the Philippines Baguio

Abstract

This paper focuses on a national effort led by the Philippine Commission
on the National Language to forge and implement a National
Orthography to guide the writing of the national language (Filipino) as
well as the local languages used in education. The project also aims to
support the new Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education program
of the Philippine Department of Education. The process of developing a
national orthography surfaced the fact that many of the smaller local
languages share similar characteristics and sounds that should then be
governed by the same spelling rules but which were made different by
several language groups working independently from each other in
times past, and without recognizing a developing Filipino orthography.
The new national orthography now wishes to assert the fact that
Philippine languages, and thus ethno-linguistic and student groups,
share more similarities than differences. They should then begin
conversing with and learning from each other.

Key words: language-in-education, medium of instruction, mother
tongue first education, small language groups


This presentation has the following points:

1. The multilingual and multicultural nature of the Philippines
2. Educational reform in the Philippines
3. The rational for a national orthography, and
4. Features of the national orthography: intercultural, national,
international
5. Some applications

A multilingual nation

The Republic of the Philippines is composed of some 7,100 islands.
Perhaps owing to their geographic and island locations, Filipinos may
also be grouped into ethno-linguistic or culture and language groups. In
its Ethnologue, the Summer Institute of Linguistics or SIL has identified
182 living languages in the Philippines, around 58 of which have
orthographies and spelling rules. (The SIL is a key player in the
development of orthographies of many languages in the Philippines,
primarily for Bible translation.) Because of this, it is said that the
Philippines can be counted as among the top 10 linguistically diverse
countries in the world.

Because of its history of colonization and development as a nation, the
Philippines also now includes in its linguistic landscape Chinese,
Spanish, English, Japanese and other foreign languages. Until today,
Spanish and English continue to impact how Filipinos spell when they
write in their own languages.

The Philippine Commonwealth Constitution of 1935 recognized English
and Spanish as official languages. But Commonwealth Act No. 184
created an Institute of National Language, which chose Tagalog as basis
for the national language. President Manuel Luis Quezon proclaimed
Tagalog as the core of the Philippine national language in 1937. (FAQs
on the National Language, Almario, 2014) Tagalog is the language of the
Filipinos clustered around Manila on the island of Luzon. Manila has
always been the national capital.

To be more inclusive, the national language was later called Pilipino and
then Filipino. The current 1987 Philippine Constitution identifies
Filipino as official language in the country, and English, unless
otherwise provided by law. Different national leaders had their own
language policies. During her term of office, former President Corazon
Aquino issued Executive Order 335 sustaining “the use of Filipino as the
medium of official communication.” In May 2003, another former
president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, issued Executive Order No. 210,
decreeing English as the monolingual language of instruction. Current
Philippine president Noynoy Aquino has been speaking to the public in
Filipino. The national language in the Philippines continues to be an
intense political issue.

Throughout its history as a nation, the medium of instruction in
Philippine schools has been changing and vacillating from Spanish to
English, to Tagalog, to English, to Pilipino and English, to English and
Filipino. At one point, the Philippine government implemented a
bilingual policy.

Educational reform

To keep up with the demands of internationalization and globalization,
the Philippine government has recently introduced reforms to the
educational system.

In July 2012, Republic Act 10-53-3 was signed into law. The law is titled:
AN ACT ENHANCING THE PHILIPPINE BASIC EDUCATION SYSTEM BY
STRENGTHENING ITS CURRICULUM AND INCREASING THE NUMBER
OF YEARS FOR BASIC EDUCATION, APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR
AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

Among the specific provisions of the law are strengthening early
childhood education by requiring universal kindergarten. It also
requires additional two years in high school. This is why the reform
program is simply called K-12 (K-to-12).

To implement the law and to ensure proficiency in language, the
Philippine Department of Education put out DepEd Order 31, Series of
2012, which stipulates the use of the many mother tongues in the
country as mediums of instruction, and as subjects in Kindergarten,
Grade 1, Grade 2 and Grade 3.

The institution by the Department of Education of a Mother Tongue-
Based Multilingual Education program is very challenging. Now,
teachers have to teach the children in their dominant home/community
languages.

 The teachers also teach their respective mother tongues as a
language course. One basic challenge here is the need for learning
materials that are based on an excellent orthography. This means ethno-
linguistic groups in the Philippines need to agree on a spelling system as
soon as possible to govern sounds, words, phrases and sentences, most
of which are being written only now.

MTB-MLE challenges

The implementation of the MTB-MLE is also an operationalization
of the Philippine Constitution’s provision about regional and community
languages as auxiliary languages in education.

Unfortunately, the Department of Education authorized only
twelve languages as mother-tongues-in-education during the initial
implementation of the project in 2012. This number was increased to 19
sometime later. None of these 19 languages is a language in the
northern Philippine Cordillera region, despite the fact that the Kalinga
Experiment in the Cordillera is always being cited to justify the MTB-
MLE program.

The teachers in the Cordillera region have been given
instructional materials in Ilokano, a lingua franca in the region. The
teachers were instructed to localize or “contextualize” the materials for
their own pupils. This is because Ilokano is one of the first 12 languages
in the Philippines that have been approved by the Department of
Education to be used in the classroom.

In the province of Benguet in the Cordillera region, there are at
least four ethno-linguistic groups: Kankanaëy, Ibaloy, Kalanguya, and
Karaw. The observation of the Education supervisors and teachers in
the province was that the teachers merely translated the words and
sentences into their children’s mother tongues. The teachers also
realized that many lowland and coastal situations and experiences are
totally strange to the mountain children. They then concluded that this
was not in accord with the essence of the MTB-MLE.

This is not to say that the four mother tongues are not being used
now. Many teachers have really been using Kankanaëy, Ibaloy, Ikaraw
and Kalanguya to speak to and teach the children, although not in the
official way that the chosen or mandated MTB-MLE languages are
getting full support.


Participatory orthography development

At the initiative of provincial education officials, Benguet language
teams have been working on the spelling rules that govern writing in
Kankanaëy, Ibaloy, Ikaraw, and Kalanguya. The MTB-MLE brought
together the different stakeholders in dialogue about participatory and
consultative orthography development.

In the last two years, a series of Stakeholders’ Congress on
Working Orthography Validation, Expansion and Acceptance of the Four
Major Mother Tongues in Benguet were held. An important feature of
the congresses and other succeeding meetings was that they brought
together linguists, language educators and other academics,
government officials, writers, community elders, students and parents
in vibrant discussions about their respective languages.

The main purpose of the meetings was to refine the spelling rules
so that the teachers can produce the instructional materials
immediately needed in the classroom.

The language communities are now confronting the writing of
their own languages. They are also now being educated about the
difference between a language and a dialect.

An important activity in these participatory working orthography
development workshops was reviewing old rules and harmonizing
these with the National Orthography or Ortograpiyang Pambansa put
out by the Commission on the Filipino Language in 2013. It is hoped that
the spelling rules in the mother tongues are not too different from those
of the national language Filipino.

Developing and implementing an intercultural National Orthography

The National Orthography or Ortograpiyang Pambansa (2013)
should be interesting because it recognizes sounds from the indigenous
speech communities, which were not included in the old Tagalog
abakada, which had only 20 letters. The new national Filipino
orthography has 28 letters (a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ñ, ng, o, p, q, r,
s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z).

Compared to the old Tagalog alphabet, the National Orthography
includes eight (8) more letters: C, F, V, J, Ñ, Q, X, and Z. Ongoing
explanations on the use of such letters are can be summarized into two
words: nationalization and modernization (Almario, 2015).

The Commission on the National Language believes that the
letters F, V, J, and Z represent sounds that are found in the smaller
languages in the Philippines, which have not been recognized by those
who made the first Philippine alphabet. There are now word lists that
show the appropriate use of such letters in many native words.

C, Ñ, Q, and X are now being recognized as necessary in the
adoption of words into the Filipino language, and in recognition of the
nation’s history. Aside from Spanish and English names, these four
letters also allow the entry of scientific and other technical words into
Filipino.

Another important feature of the National Orthography is its
reintroduction of the use of diacritical marks to indicate stress and
vowel inflections (à, á, â), a feature of the old abakada. Aside from stress
marks, the National Orthography also recognizes a vowel sound that has
been found out to be existent in many small languages in the Philippines
from north to south. This is the mid-central vowel or schwa, or pepet
sound (like the two vowel sounds the word URGENT). It has now been
decided that a dieresis or umlaut be placed on top of the letter E to
represent the sound: Ëë. Some examples are:

wën (Ilokano), YES
kën (Ilokano), AND
këtkët (Pangasinan), CHEW
silëw (Pangasinan), LIGHT
utëk (Pangasinan), BRAIN
panagbënga (Kankanaëy), BLOOMING SEASON
 tëlo (Mëranaw), THREE
matëy (Mëranaw), FAST
tëngel (Mëranaw), SLAP
sëlëd (Kiniray-a), INSIDE
yuhëm (Kiniray-a), SMILE
gërët (Kuyonon), CUT

Hitherto, the schwa was represented by the letters U, A, or E.
(page 41, Ortograpiyang Pambansa, 2013)

The new OP also recognizes other Cordillera sounds as part of the
corpus of meaningful Philippine sounds. An example is the
interchangeable SH and CH. Here is the provision in the new OP
regarding this particular sound:

“6.4. May SH ang Ibaloy. Ang malaking problema, isang
lehitimong tunog ang SH sa mga wika sa Cordillera. Sa wikang
Ibaloy, natatagpuan ang SH sa umpisa, gitna, at dulo ng salita.
Halimbawa, shuwa (dalawa). Sa 2013 forum, ipinasiya na
isaalang-alang ang SH bilang isang tunog ngunit hindi tutumbasan
ng katapat na bagong titik. Ang ibig sabihin, mananatili ito sa anyo
nitó ngayon bilang katutubong digrapo at babaybayin sa mga titik
S at H, gaya sa sumusunod na mga salitang Ibaloy: shuhol
(nahiga), sadshak (kaligayahan), savishong (lason), pëshën
(hawak), akësh (rin, Bontok language).” (page 28, OP 2013)

From the point of view of the Commission on the National
Language, these new features are important if the Filipino language is to
truly become inclusive. This new National Orthography is intercultural
because it tries to bring together the many languages, thus cultures,
spread out in the Philippine archipelago. It allows the national language
to draw more strength from the smaller but more diverse languages, to
be enriched by the local cultures and experiences.

Specifically, Section 6, Article XIV of the Philippine Constitution of
1987 provides that, “The national language of the Philippines is Filipino.
As it evolves, it shall be further developed and enriched on the basis of
existing Philippine and other languages.”

 The Commission on the National Language believes recognizing
the many native sounds in the Philippines and enshrining these in the
National Orthography is a necessary step towards allowing the smaller
local languages to contribute unique concepts into, and thus enriching,
the national language and culture. The Commission on the Filipino
Language is trying to exercise political will in implementing the new
National Orthography.

The series of meetings on orthography in Benguet province also
provided a chance for the four languages to be in conversation with
each other, as all Philippine languages should start doing.

An ideal situation in Benguet province should be that if all the four
languages have the same word for something, then all four should have
the same spelling for that word, and that such spelling should be similar
to the rules in Filipino. In the first place, such mother tongues are
Philippine languages, not foreign languages.

Another ideal situation is that any child should be able to read
another Philippine language and, of course, Filipino.

And the end goal should be that the children will keep wanting to
learn after they know how to read and write in their own mother
languages.


The MTB-MLE as an opportunity to draw from rich indigenous cultures

The MTB-MLE is an opportunity for indigenous peoples to realize
the value of their indigenous knowledge systems, and to mine the
wealth of their cultures, which have always been regarded as very rich.

Composed mostly of oral culture communities, the nation and the
Cordillera region are certainly teeming with intangible cultural markers
that have not been systematically codified. Among these are the
languages, literatures, music, songs, chants, rituals, dances or what
might be generically referred to now as the complex systems of
indigenous knowledge.

 The UNESCO has recognized the Ifugao hudhud, a very long chant
associated with manual rice culture, as one of 19 Masterpieces of Oral
and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in May 2001. Shouldn’t all our
children start learning the lessons embedded in such a literary
masterpiece?

In her study of a chant of a small (“minority”) ethno-linguistic
group (Kalanguya) in Northern Luzon, Philippines, Smithsonian scholar
Patricia Afable (2000) concluded that the particular intangible cultural
form is a “rich cultural resource.” This means a cultural form, because
of its unintelligibility, may often be dismissed as simply important to the
cultural group but may not mean anything to others. Afable’s study
shows that several significant things about a society can actually be
learned by looking deeper into what may seem like a trivial chant.

The language issue continues to confront many Filipinos today.
Basic education teachers are now busy producing instructional
materials in the many mother tongues of Filipino children. Although
Filipino is already pervasive in the country primarily because of
education and the media, some Filipinos still think we should really
educate ourselves in English.

The participatory processes of orthography development is
surfacing the fact that many of the Philippine languages share similar
characteristics and sounds that should then share the same spelling
rules.

The Commission on the Filipino language is hoping that the not
only will Filipino children learn how to read and write in their own
mother languages and in the national language, but they will also attain
a cultural education that will result in a better appreciation of who they
are as a people and as citizens of the world.

A book review as a case

Indigenous Earth Wisdom: A documentation
of the cosmologies of the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera

By Judy Carino-Fangloy, Merci Dulawan, Vicky Macay,
Maria Elena Regpala and Lucia Ruiz
 Published by Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary, 2015
118 pages

It was a pleasure reading Indigenous Earth Wisdom: A
documentation of the cosmologies of the indigenous peoples of the
Cordillera, put together by Judy Carino-Fangloy, Merci Dulawan, Vicky
Macay, Maria Elena Regpala and Lucia Ruiz.

It assumes there is such a body of knowledge that is either
submerged, hidden or buried that we should discover, dig out, or
unearth. The book featured this afternoon is a testament that there is
such a treasure trove of knowledge.

The book puts together in one readable volume the stories of
currently living community elders and bearers of traditions.

The book gives a sampling of local knowledge and wisdom held by
the Bontok, Ibaloy, Ifugao, Kankanaëy, Kalinga, and Tinggiyan, among
others.

In general, the book paints a picture of indigenous peoples who
live close to the earth, who commune with the unseen, and who are
connected to each other in community.

The book shows that the indigenous peoples have been
dependent on the fruit and bounty of the mountains. Aside from
cultivated or domesticated crops, the indigenous peoples nourished and
healed themselves with wild plants and food crops, each bearing fruit in
its own season.

In many ways, this shows us that indigenous peoples did not need
to meddle with the genetic make-up of plants and animals to provide
them with instant food or all-season fruits like Chinese pears and
apples.

The book also demonstrates that the forests have always served
as the people’s pharmacy.

 It was surprising to read that the native Ibaloy mining system
sagaok was meant to share gold with others, and not to amass for
oneself the mineral wealth of the earth.

The book also includes many stories about nature spirits that
guarded streams, rivers, hills and mountains with their own diverse
flora and fauna. Reading such stories made me realize that the belief in
spirits must be nature’s way to prevent the people from destroying the
natural flow of rivers, and the unbridled destruction of mountains and
forests.

On page 72 of the book, a story is recorded on “Appeasing the
vengeance of a pinading (Kalinga), as told to Lucy Ruiz. A part of the
story says upon consulting a mandadawak or community priest, “The
spirit said he is a pinading in the forest whose house was totally
wrecked by JB’s tractor, which killed his pregnant wife and other
members of his family. To avenge their death, the spirit punished JB and
eventually killed him by choking, and said this was not enough and that
he would also take others. A carabao had to be offered to appease such
spirit.”

Republic Act No. 101211 of 2010 is the “act strengthening the
Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management System, providing
for the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Framework
and Institutionalizing the National Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management Plan, appropriating funds therefor and for other
purposes.”

The law recognizes “indigenous knowledge systems” as one of the
basic foundations of DRRM. In the law’s Declaration of Principles, it
states that the law shall

(j) Ensure that disaster risk reduction and climate change
measures are gender responsive, sensitive to indigenous
knowledge systems, and respectful of human rights.

In an article “Katutubo ba sa atin and coral reef?” in his column
“Kulo at kulorum,” National Artist and KWF chair Virgilio Almario
(2014) talks about his unease about the use of “coral reef” in the
Philippines as though it were a foreign concept.

He says in fact many language groups in the Philippines have
indigenous terminologies for it because coral reefs are part of the
everyday lives of many Filipinos.

Certainly “indigenous knowledge systems” are articulated in the
language of the people who possess them. This book introduces us to
the rich local vocabulary in which local knowledge and wisdom are
couched.

In all, the book is right in emphasizing that the indigenous
principle in relation to land is “stewardship” not “ownership.” In other
words, the beliefs, knowledge and wisdom related to the earth provide
logic to a lifestyle that is gentle and careful in treading on earth. It is a
rational way of life that is fully aware that we are simply passing
through.

But what is the use of such a book in light of current emphasis on
Western science and technology that has systematically denigrated
indigenous knowledge?

In a post on the Internet, Fabio Y. Lee Perez (2005) reports that
during the vast 2004 tsunami, the Moken indigenous people of Thailand,
and of the Gunung Sitoli on Nias Island, Indonesia reported a lesser
cases of death and injury.

Perez states that, “It is due to their knowledge and understanding
of the way of nature, and their traditional resource management
practices.” Lee Perez concludes, “Although our understanding of science
has increased and information technologies have become intense, we
have lost our human’s primary instinct of survival. We have much to
learn from the keen environmental awareness that many indigenous
people possess.”

In the most recent KAPWA international conference on
indigenous peoples here in Baguio, one of the speakers made the
statement that the future is indigenous.

On Page 4, the authors say this book “may be of interest to people
who are searching for more meaningful ways of living on the earth, as
an alternative to the dominant Western paradigm.”

I would say, this book on indigenous wisdom could very well be
our salvation from our own destruction.

Unveiling indigenous knowledge through word studies

An example of a practical application of the concepts of mother-
tongue education is vocabulary learning. A word can be shown to signal
cultural wealth which can be a source of pride for learners and which
contribute to their cultural literacy. Here are some examples:

Mëkhing, from the Ibaloy of Benguet

For a long time, we have been calling the Kabayan mummies
mummies and never cared to find out how those who have been
preserving their dead this way actually called the desiccated bodies.
Mëkhing comes from the word nakkhing which means very dried to the
point of being very dark and shrunken.

In Tinongshol in Kabayan today, there is a big rock that contains
coffins of mummies. The people have long stopped the practice but it is
said that mummification involves pouring saline solution into the body
to prevent rotting. The body is also washed with guava and other herbs,
and smoked for several months. (Fong, 2015)

Nakem, from Ilocano

Nakem is defined as the consciousness that helps a person to
decide between good and evil in his/her thoughts, words and deeds.
(Rosal, 2015)

Other words that derive from nakëm are: nakem ti Dios (will of
God); nanakëm a tao (a prudent man); awan manaknakemna (wishy-
washy person).


Pakinasën, from Cuyonon in Palawan

Among the Cuyonon, pakinasën is an inclusive word covering all
seashells, seaweeds and other sea creatures that make for delicious dish
or soup. These are often accessible during ënas or low tide sa ënasan.
Those who collect or gather pakinasën are called manigpakinas.
Pakinasën also specifically refers to seashells of various shapes and
sizes. (Erlinda San Juan, 2015)

We can certainly play word games with our students to help them
appreciate what is truly their own.



References

Almario, Virgilio, 2015. FAQs on Filipino. Manila: KWF.

Almario, Virgilio. 2014. “Katutubo ba sa atin and coral reef?” Kulo at Kolorum.
http:// kwf. gov. ph. (accessed 15 October 2014)

Judy Carino-Fangloy, Merci Dulawan, Vicky Macay, Maria Elena Regpala and Lucia
Ruiz. 2015. Indigenous Earth Wisdom: A documentation of the cosmologies of the
indigenous peoples of the Cordillera. Baguio: Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary.

Fong, Jimmy B. 2015. “Mga ambag na salitang Ibaloy.” Ambagan 2013: Mga Salita
mula sa Iba’t Ibang Wika sa Filipinas. Quezon City: UP Press.

Quebral, Nora Cruz. 2012. Development Communication Primer. Penang:
Southbound.

Rosal, Noemi U. 2015. “Mga ambag na Salitang Ilokano sa Ating Wikang Pambansa.”
Ambagan 2013: Mga Salita mula sa Iba’t Ibang Wika sa Filipinas. Quezon City: UP
Press.

San Juan, Erlinda D. 2015. “Wikang Cuyonon: Mga salitang “pakinasen.” Ambagan
2013: Mga Salita mula sa Iba’t Ibang Wika sa Filipinas. Quezon City: UP Press.

Republic Act No. 101211. An act strengthening the Philippine Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management System, providing for the National Disaster Risk
Reduction and Management Framework and Institutionalizing the National Disaster
Risk Reduction and Management Plan, appropriating funds therefor and for other
purposes. Congress of the Philippines. Passed by Congress on February 1, 2010,
Approved by PGMA May 27, 2010.

Fabio Y. Lee Perez. Survival Tactics of Indigenous People. Spring 2005.
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/LEEPERFY/ (Accessed 15 October
2014)