TAGALOG is for losers who are severely challenged in the mastery of proper English and I do mean the Queen’s English, not the mutilated version staple to most disc jockeys on FM stations.
As a defence mechanism and trying to be clever, the favorite line is, “English is just a language and not a gauge or standard for one’s intelligence.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. To achieve mastery of proper English needs a considerable amount of intelligence and discipline.
To be able to speak, write and comprehend proper English, one needs to study it, and studying means you must be able to read and write. To be able to just read and comprehend, a fair amount of intelligence is required, more so writing in proper English.
So yes, mastery of proper English is a gauge of one’s intelligence.
To be able to speak Tagalog does not really require some intelligence. Just watch “Eat Bulaga” for about a week and by Sunday you will be able to speak Tagalog like a natural born tambay in Cubao.
We used to be the No. 1 English-speaking nation in Asia. Lately it does not seem to be the case. According to Sen. Pia Cayetano, “Just by looking at the data, the English proficiency of our college students is the same as Malaysian Grade 6 students and Japan taxi drivers.”
And then there’s Republic Act (RA) No. 10157 or the “Kindergarten Education Act” (the principal author was Sen. Ralph Recto) signed and approved as law by then President Noynoy Aquino and implemented by then Education secretary Armin Luistro at the start of school year 2011-2012.
Section 5 of RA 10157. Medium of Instruction. – The State shall hereby adopt the mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) method. The mother tongue of the learner shall be the primary medium of instruction for teaching and learning in the kindergarten level.
And what is a “mother tongue”?
It is the first language that you learn when you are a baby, rather than a language learned at school as an adult.
Why teach the learners something they already know? Why not start them early with a universal language, the language of most of the world’s commerce, science and technology, not to mention culture and arts.
This “mother tongue” concept failed miserably. We have the lowest comprehension level in Asia. Who cares if you’re a master in Hiligaynon?Most of thejobs of the future which involve technologies are in English.
According to Rex Wallen Tan, director of Government-Academe-Industry Network, Inc., a 2019 study showed that 54% of websites globally are using the English language.
“The internet drives much of today’s business of learning and also of e-commerce. The best institutions in the world are providing their learning content for free — Harvard, Princeton and the millions of YouTube teachers are free. Most of these free high-quality learnings are in English.”
There’s only one language that will get you through almost anywhere in the world and it’s not Chinese although it’s spoken by most people in the planet. And if you know this language almost always from Timbuktu to Zamboanga there will be someone to give you directions to the nearest bus stop or the nearest internet cafe.
So what is this magical language that opens doors almost anywhere in this planet? Let me build up your curiosity. In the Philippines it’s everywhere, from street signs to jeepneys, even stores have their names in this language. Almost all newspapers in the Philippines are written in this language and it’s also the medium of instruction in our schools. Why,Pinoys even curse in this language.
This language created a growth industry in two countries because of the mastery of its natives in this language – India and the Philippines, with the Philippines now taking the lead role in that industry.
I’ll give you a clue: that industry is the BPO Industry, in common terms the Call Center Industry.
Yeah baby, you got it right, the language is English and it’s been taken for granted here that most Pinoys forgot we have a mastery of it having been exposed to English from birth to death.
Unfortunately, this early exposure we have to English is fast vanishing. There was a time when most kids were exposed to Sesame Street on television and that produced a generation who can speak straight English. Now what we have are Korean telenovelas and cartoons dubbed in Tagalog.
Excerpts from a June 8, 2020 GMA News:
Pia Cayetano to TV stations: Show cartoons in original English
Sen. Pia Cayetano on Monday said the government broadcast stations should consider airing children’s programs in English to help them develop proficiency in the language at their young age, saying that the new normal due to COVID-19 will demand this skill from many Filipinos.
“Can we start showing a lot of cartoons and family-friendly materials on our government stations? A language is learned earliest at their youngest. The earlier you are exposed to a language, the earlier you can pick it up,” Cayetano said during a Senate hearing focused on futures thinking.
Just play it in English. Its cartoons, it’s just meant for them to hear it…
English is now the universal language. While the rest of the world is catching up we are falling behind and losing what was our No. 1 advantage. But it’s not too late. We can still do something./PN
