Language, learning, identity, privilege

By JAMES SORIANO
August 24, 2011, 4:06am

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.zr

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.

So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

------------------------------

It took a while for me to reflect on this, I was planning to let it pass for a week before I write my
opinion about it but realizing that it will be too late since Buwan ng Wika is after all celebrated this
month of August.In his column, Soriano ranted and described his use of the Filipino language as
practical because, according to him, he is “forced” to use this language when dealing with the
“tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world.”

The initial reaction I had was amusement and pity and not of anger or rage. This is probably
because I live in Cebu, Visayas region wherein we do not necessarily speak FILIPINO all the time.
You see, I'm the type of person who has access, and is exposed to the many different 'Worlds' or
sub cultures, cliques or circles where Filipinos live in.

I once thought like this dude, once upon a time. Coming from a Middleclass family entering and
acquiring one's education in a Jesuit School taught me lots of things, including the not-so-good stuff
as well. Of course I learned my values there and damn proud of it, but at the same time I was also
immersed in the culture of the ELITE students who were my classmates. Though not all of them are
bad, but it's just an irony that some bad fruits thought almost exactly like Soriano.

I got out of this mindset around 2-1/2 years into college where I got my degree and was immersed in
a non-sectarian school, add to that 360 culture change, so that shocked me quite a bit. But I got
stinky, dirty, but see, I learned. The tipping point was during a Brown Raise Movement Seminar in
2009 wherein I was shaken down into my spirit, wherein my journey of identity truly began.

Now, to eliminate some misconceptions let me 'School You' just a bit, real quick (not directed to the
author but to my readers..:D):
 The Cebuano tongue is simply not programmed to immediately switch to 'Tagalog' or Filipino
(this is why we somewhat switch to english before transitioning to tagalog); I learned this in Call
Center Training :P [We were lucky enough to have a highly qualified trainer of not just of English but
also of Filipino]
 You see, we were taught the history of the English language and that was also compared to
the very diverse Philippines Languages. Take note, as a nation, we have 160+/- spoken language
across the 7,107 Islands.
 We can't really blame Soriano as an individual or his environment or his parents or the
culture he was exposed to. It's an irony but our education system has a major hand on this kind of
mindset, starting from elementary.
 Though it is agreeable or debatable that English is the Language of the world, but it's just a
shame that we don't know our own language.--I too am guilty in this aspect, technically I can speak
Filipino, Bisaya and English, add to that some broken Chinese and Japanese, so if I know 2
Philippine laguanges, that just leaves 158 more to learn, right?
 Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa
paroroonan? - Jose Rizal; if you think about it, most of rizal's notes and quotes are still applicable
today, that just goes to show how advanced he was.
There’s nothing wrong with learning a foreign language but to actually downgrade and avoid the use
of our own native language — here in the Philippines by Filipinos themselves — is just sad and
alarming! Hindi ka sosyal, Cheap ka ‘pag mali-mali ang grammar mo sa English.

What’s sadder and more alarming is that millions more Filipinos are starting to change: some want to
change there language, change the skin color, change their values and sometimes to the point of
their whole being. Will the Filipino always be ashamed of his/her brown skin, short height and snot-
nose? Will the Filipino always look to a foreign country, for work, for a husband/wife, for a foreign
citizenship for hope and salvation? Is it really that hard, to help out, and be part of the solution?

Here are some few powerful quotes to wake you up:

"All Filipinos want to be something else. The poor Filipino wants to be American. The Rich Filipinos
want to be Spaniards. No Filipino wants to be simply FILIPINO." 
- Barth Suretsky, American-Filipino Expat
I usually do not dislike essays that call a spade a spade, and I like pieces that
actually recognize the pink elephant in the room.  James Soriano just mentioned
what he observes:  that the “erudite” or “rich” speak English, and only
the manongs, manangs and ‘syanos of the Philippines speak Filipino.  But he
made a hasty generalization, probably done out of pomposity he can no longer
contain.  Despite the fact that  I encourage my students to be fluent in English, I
could never write an essay like that.  Why?  Because I don’t believe that good
English speakers are automatically superior (James may not have blatantly said it
but that is the impression most of us get).  My co-teachers in Brain Train are
among the most intelligent people I know, not just because they graduated with
honors from UP or were Oblation Scholars or were board topnotchers, but also
because talking to them stimulates my mind.  And guess what?  Some of them are
horrible in speaking and in writing in English, they won’t deny that.  I’ve also met
people from my previous jobs who were, y’know, like, they’re sho gud
(pronounced with a short “U”, as in “gut”) in like speaking in Eng-glush  pero (the
“r” here is spoken as though you were really bulol with the “r”) I don’t
have bileb (bilib) in them.  Honestly?  I think some of them are airheads who got
good in English (are they considered good even if they don’t really speak in
straight English?) because of 1. the want to sound sosyal; or 2. too much
exposure to Cartoon Network when they were kids.

Mr. James Soriano, please immerse yourself more.  Get to meet Palanca
Awardees whose pieces are beautifully written in Filipino, and intellectual
students who, despite the fact that they CAN speak straight English still try their
best to speak in Filipino.

I may no longer be coherent because so many things are on my mind, things that
tell my usually-liberal mind that that piece was wrong (Yes, yes, he was just
expressing his thoughts and yes, yes, there’s that trite and abused “freedom of
expression” defense).  But what really made it wrong is because upon reading it, I
could feel James Soriano’s disgust for our language–the language that is our soul
and identity.  Sure, he said nice words about it too, but for most of the time, he
was lambasting it.  It’s like what I did about rabbits.  You see, I’m afraid of
rabbits.  Or to put it bluntly, nandidiri ako sa rabbits.  In my opinion, they’re big
rats in a better packaging.  All of my life, I avoided rabbits (I : rabbits :: James :
Tigalog).  But there was a time when I did find them cute, and even touched
them.  For a time, I found them amusing (similar to James’ “fondness” for
Tagalog).  I even pondered on getting a pair as pets.  But in the end, I decided
not to buy because deep inside, I know that I still find them kadiri.

To add insult to the injury, James wrote his peace in AUGUST, when most people
are rereading excellent literary pieces like Florante at Laura and Noli/El Fili,
paying homage to the language that is one of the major major (hehe) things that
gave us our identities.  Another thing that would have saved him is if he called us
readers into action to eradicate the image of the Filipino language as merely the
language of the streets.  Something like, “While this may be offensive to Filipino
teachers and other people, I am not alone in thinking this, you have admit.  So let
this article be a challenge to us to empower our language.” blah blah blah blah.

Let’s learn to speak good English to compete globally but let’s not forgot to speak
good Filipino to complete our identity.