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Linguistic and Cultural Discrimination in the Philippines, Violation olf Human Rights
 
Government and non-government groups and activities that have negatively affected the use and development
of our native languages.
 
December 14, 2011
 
* National and provincial language policy – only Filipino is the national language, with English as an official language, yet other countries in recent years (Ethiopia, Uganda, South Africa, etc) have made multiple native languages official. Many more political entities (regions, provinces, autonomous territories, and even municipalities) around the world have made their main languages co-official with whatever national languages are already recognized in the country, such as the Basque, Galician, and Catalan regions of Spain; the Sindh Province of Pakistan; the Fryslan Province of Netherlands; the constituent country of Wales within the UK; the Nunavut Territory of Canada; the Xinjiang and Tibet autonomous units of China; several municipalities of Norway/Sweden;
the Faroese of Denmark, and many more. In the Philippines, the main languages have not been made into national
languages nor have they yet been promoted to co-official languages by smaller government units. The activity
going on in La Union province to formally incorporate Ilokano in various sectors alongside Tagalog and English
is a refreshing change in an otherwise stagnant climate for government-led language sponsorship in other parts
of the country. Meanwhile, unfortunately, the vast majority of pamphlets, tarpaulins, reports etc sent from
the various national departments to the regions remain in English and  Tagalog, but very very rarely in
the respective regional or local languages. It is ironic that one can go on the Department of Health website
in Hawaii and find important documents on anthrax, asthma, and other diseases available in Ilokano, but
yet the same cannot be said in the very country where these languages are native and have many more speakers…
 
* National anthem – it has been made a criminal ofense to sing the national anthem (or say the Pledge to the flag)
in another language other than Filipino according to the Flag and Heraldic Code, even if it is a native
Philippine language. Is this not against A) the constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of expression? (the Constitution, by the way, should take precedence over a congressional act like the Flag Code); B) the rights of indigenous people to preserve and develop their languages and cultures provided in the Constitution and the Indigenous People’s Rights Act? Most indigenous groups had no say over the matter of the Philippine Republic’s creation, and then we turn around and force them to sing about how much they love this country, in a language which they might not understand and have very little historical significance to them? C) The very goals of said
 Flag Code, which is supposed to foster national pride and unity? Maybe we are crazy, but we think we could express our love for our country more authentically in the tongue that is closest to our hearts, the one we best understand, the one our mothers whispered to us while on her breast, the one we make love and dream in. Especially if there were not the threat of our being imprisoned for one year or fined 20,000 pesos. We don’t know
of another country that makes it a criminal offense to sing its anthem in all but one of its own languages
(which actually are recognized as “auxiliary official languages” in the Constitution! What a sham!). Several individuals, groups, and provinces have attempted to sing variations of the national anthem, but have always met the same death by the National Historical Commission, citing the Flag and Heraldic Code. Some congressman,
we hope, will someday have the courage to move to amend the law so as to decriminalize it, to provide a process where translations can be formally reviewed and approved, or at least provide exceptions (such as indigenous groups, informal settings, in privacy, etc) where variations are acceptable.
 
* Education policy – our languages have been largely excluded from education for over 100 years. Apart from the brief phase of using the vernacular in Grade 1 and Grade 2 between the 50s and 70s, they have not been formally incorporated in the educational system as media of instruction or even as subjects. Moreover, it was common practice to punish or fine a student for speaking in the local language; even now teachers rampantly scold
their students for not speaking English or Filipino in the provinces. The majority (70%) of Filipinos have
never been formally taught their native languages, and hence do not know their proper spelling, grammar,
and deeper vocabulary. Similarly, most Filipinos have never read a book in their native language, as there are
few people who can properly write them and a similarly pathetic number who can comfortably read. It is not
that the languages are somehow inadequate, it is mostly that our access to and instruction of them are
limited. Meanwhile, South Africa lets their school divisions choose what languages they want to use as medium
of instriuction (MOI), Spain has different MOIs depending on region, Taiwan teaches their mother tongues
as language subjects,Singapore streams pupils into different language schools based on ethnicity, India requires
all students to learn the local language, the national language, and English, Malaysia gives parents the choice
to enter their children into national schools (where they use the national language) or vernacular schools
(where they use the local language), and many more examples that give more flexibility and choice than
the Philippine system, which remains extremely centralized and homogenous for such a diverse country.
 
* Commerce – national franchises such as Jollibees, Mcdo, SM, and others don’t adjust their operations in different parts of the country according to language. It’s a one-size-fits-all approach with the signs, ads, and menus all being in English and Tagalog. I see this is probably a matter of efficiency and economy, but some things could be changed at no cost. For example, in many parts of the country (especially Luzon) the staff will only communicate with the customer in English or Tagalog. It has been noted that in Pampanga if you speak Kapampangan to the staff, or Pangasinense in Pangasinan, or Ilokano in other northern provinces, the staff by default normally reply in 
Tagalog. When you ask them why, they tell you that they either feel shy because their boss is around, or that
they’ve been explicitly told to speak only in Tagalog. Many managers and owners of outlets in the Provinces are not locals but rather from NCR, and try to impose their language preferences on their staff. This is not an
officially endorsed policy of the overall company, but since instances of this kind of linguistic
discrimination are common (and once again against the freedom of expression in our Bill of Rights),
headquarters should properly train their managers and staff to respect the linguistic rights of each other
and especially their customers. Does it not also make business sense to make a customer feel as comfortable
as possible and respond, when possible, in the language he or she chooses to communicate in? If a cashier
knows the local language, and a customer uses it, we see no reason for the cashier not to respectfully entertain
the customer’s language preference, rather than implicitly degrading the customer by responding in a
more “prestigious” language. Unfortunately, most training for these establishments occurs in Manila, and
the scenario of a customer walking in and speaking a different language besides Tagalog is simply not
dealt with. When preparing the script of what staff should say behind the counter, these companies train
their staff to respond in the local language in addition to the Tagalog version, which, we are told the
La Union Provincial Government is also trying to encourage.
 
* Media – It is illuminating to compare the media picture of thePhilippines with India. Like the Philippines,
India is a developingcountry, it has a high population density, was colonized by an
English-speaking power, received independence at about the same time, and is highly multilingual. But they
went very different directions in language policy, and this is reflected in their media landscape. There are over
500 TV channels covering all major languages of the country. The largest national network, Doordarshan, runs
a 3-tier broadcasting system (national, regional, local) and has an additional 10 regional language satellite
channels broadcast internationally. There are cinema and music industries in 11 different Indian languages.
Seven languages are represented by the top 10 circulating newspapers in the country. Now while it is true
that India’s population is much greater than the Philippines, and therefore have greater power in numbers to
help sustain media in different languages, the most important factor is the climate for the use and development
of such languages. If a group is virtually illiterate in their own language, a large print circulation in that
language cannot be sustained – no matter how big the population is. Cebuano, of over 20 million speakers is
a case in point. But Indians are generally not illiterate in their native languages. 33 languages are used as media
of instruction across the country at the primary level, 21 in secondary, and 18 above this level! The
national government furthermore aids the adaptation of its languages to new technologies through the
“Technology Development in Indian Languages” program, so whenever a new web service, computer
program, speech recognition software, etc comes out, it is swiftly applied to 26 official “Scheduled”
languages. The Indian parliament has repeatedly added new Scheduled languages to its Constitution, and
has plans to add a dozen or so more. If Philippine media networks say, “Oh, there’s no market for media
in other languages besides Tagalog” or “they’re not profitable,” there are several answers to this. A) No
major television network has ever made a serious and sustained effort to patronize the other languages beyond
the odd half an hour broadcast. No dedicated channels, cartoons, quality-dubbed movies, music channels, etc.
So how can they be sure if it hasn’t really been tried properly? B) And if they are not sustainable, that’s not surprising! It’s hard to cater to languages that are excluded from education, government, technology, and suffer
from low reputations and low literacy. C) In other countries, like Wales, New Zealand, Morocco, and Turkey, television in minority languages which are not profitable are bankrolled by governments in order to ensure
that different ethnic groups have access to these important services. If the Philippine government cared about
the diversification of its media, it could find a way, through sponsorship, incentives, mutual benefit
agreements with the major companies, or just by simply requesting. Even if no dramatic changes were
undertaken, Philippine media conglomerates could at least establish some protocols for respectful treatment of different groups. For example, if a reporter is interviewing someone, he or she should ask what language he
would like to be interviewed in (as the BBC do), and if it’s different from Tagalog or English, it’s up to
the multibillion dollar broadcaster to dub or subtitle the interview if it wishes. Secondly, insulting and
racist (“languagist”?) content such as found in the movie SAKAL SAKALI SAKLOLO  should be discouraged.
And adverts should be allowed to be submitted in any language---after all, the client is paying so he should be
able to dictate the language, not ABS-CBN (which was the problem Lito Osmena came across a few years
ago).
 
* Internet – this is a topic of recent interest. For reasons not entirely clear, the Google and Facebook localization teams for thev Philippines have not created website versions for other Philippine languages. This is especially strange given that, A) there are many Google and Facebook services for languages with fewer speakers (and
even no native speakers, like Latin or Pirate (?); B) the Philippine regional languages technically enjoy 
constitutional  status as auxiliary official languages, and many regional languages with equivalent status around
the world have already been given Google search portals and Facebook versions; C) the Philippine
regional languages are used by millions of people everyday, have established literatures, are used in regional broadcasts of national television and most AM radio, and are finally being prepared for use in primary education—yet some languages in other countries that are much less established and have not penetrated the same number of societal domains already have Google and Facebook support. One theory for this language gap might be that
most of the employees in Google’s localization team originate from NCR, are not speakers of said
regional languages, and thus do not see support for them as urgent. Another reason might come down to
semantic miscommunication. Google says to their Filipino team, “Right boys, we’re going to roll out Google
for the Philippine languages so as to localize our services. What languages exist in the Philippines?” The
Filipinos, accustomed to referring to English and Filipinos as languages while the others as dialects,
respond, “English and Filipino.” Google then instructs them to proceed and make the search portal in English
and Filipino. This is a very likely scenario since hardly anyone besides professors of linguistics know that
the “dialects” are in fac t independent languages, and I guess the typical employee is a nerdy comp sci graduate
and not anyone familiar with Philippine languages. The third theory is that these internet companies are only
willing to support languages as far as the national government in question is concerned. Given the relative low support, recognition, and inclusion of Philippine languages in national policy and procedures, the
concomitant support by these global companies is similarly weak. Whatever the reason is, someone should
bring these deficiencies to their attention.
 
* KWF – the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino was set up to fulfill the provision in the Constitution that says,
 “The Congress shall establish a national language commission composed of representatives of various regions
and disciplines which shall undertake, coordinate, and promote researches for the development, propagation, and preservation of Filipino and other languages” (Article XIV, Section 9). Will someone tell me exactly what
the KWF has done for the “other languages”? Have they tried to rectify the marginalization our languages
face across all the sectors listed above? Have they critically examined the constitutionality of the Flag
and Heraldic Code? No. Along with the National Historical Commission, they are among its biggest
supporters! Have they coordinated with the commercial sector to encourage language-friendly policies? No.
Have they petitioned ABS-CBN, GMA, and TV5 for better representation of other languages? No. Have
they researched how Facebook and Google may become more multilingual in the Philippines and taken action?
No. And why have they remained so silen t about the MTB-MLE movement? If you really want to “develop, propagate, and preserve” languages, education seems like an obvious place to start. Instead, it seems like they
are trying to do the exact opposite. The one KWF commissioner who seemed to finally take note of the other 
half of KWF’s mandate, Dr. Ricardo Nolasco, was swiftly removed and replaced with the traditional type—
the kind who serves the other languages with a token translation here or there. It is revealing that the KWF has
often spoken in avid favor of legislation to make ou r educational system entirely or almost entirely Filipino
(such as the Estrada bill that recently came out). It is also revealing that pretty much only 1 out of 5 divisions
of the KWF is dedicated to other Philippine languages. I would finally also advise people to read their
annual report and budget and witness to what extent they are actually developing our native languages. It is
time KWF realized that the Isang Bansa, Isang Lahi, Isang Wika ideology is Neo Nazi and best discarded in
favor of Multiculturalism and recognition of the linguistic diversity in our country..
 
* Social Climate – Not including all the aforementioned language inadequacies systemic in the policies and
actions of government, corporations, media, and other sectors, there is a major information void among the public. Probably 99% of Filipinos are not aware tha t most Philippine languages are threatened, what the conditions and ramifications of language death are, what are the implications (pros and cons) of a multilingual society, what other countries have done to safeguard their languages (and the corollary—what the Philippine has not done so far), what linguistic rights individuals and communities are afforded based on existing national and international law,
and what they can do to secure those rights. Heck, we are still calling our languages ‘dialects’ after 100 years,
as if they were all slight modifications of the same language! My point is, any attempt to fix the
institutional problems concerning language will run up agains t massive amounts of misinformation,
misguided preconceptions, or simple lack of knowledge on the pertinent issues. The public is largely in the dark, probably because our educational system has not cared abou t our linguistic diversity in either a practical
way (using our languages in the classroom), nor in a theoretical way (issues of language appearing in
curriculum content). The lack of information, apathy, or downright distaste for our native languages persist when
the deprived students proceed to government, media, and other sectors, in which the chance that they are likely
to care, never mind think of, policy changes to rectify the situation is next to nil. Regardless of one’s views
on whether we should be doing more t o exercise our linguistic rights; whether we should push for English,
Filipino, our mother tongues, or some sort of combination; and how to approach the language reforms we
seek, everyone would benefit from more information. Right now, our language future is at risk of being
decided by a few ideologues, Tagalog media giants, and congressmen eager to create legislation reflecting
their specific views on such matters. They, for the most part, grew up in the same information-starved
environment that we all did when it comes to language rights, services, and pluralism—so it worries me substantially that they are also the ones to decide our media of instruction in school and other policies that
affect our languages. One positive movement towards addressing the widespread information hole is the recent proliferation of conferences on MTB-MLE, cultural and linguistic democracy, etc. Awareness and exchange
of ideas is the first step towards any reform.
  
* Literary development. This is partly the fault of all the legislations pertinent to language and the way they have been implemented in our civil society. These laws resulted in the exclusion of Visayan literature from the literary development of the coutrry, English and Tagalog having been cannonized as the legitimate representatives of the country's literary life. This has succeeded in dampening creativity in our Visayan languages (and all other Philippine languages labelled as regional or provincial). Luckily for Cebuano it has always had writers of calibre who refused to be silenced and drawn into viewing their native tongue as secondary and have continued writing despite the lack of publication opportunities. It may appear that the NCCA has undertaken affirmative action to encourage writing in the languages, but inevitably this affirmative action hardly remedies the yawning gap in literary development between Cebuano and the primate languages. Literature in the primate languages are ensconced in academe. Until recently, Cebuano was disallowed in the classrooms and swas/is deemed unsuitable for intellectual discussions. Local publishers are almost non-existent, and readers prefer reading American whodunnits than buying a book by local authors, especially those in Cebuano. Cebuanos can do a lot to reverse this situation. Many young people have taken up writing in the native language, but their experience of the native language is for the great part inadequate--for lack of deep immersion in the language itself (there are not so many books to read in Cebuano), so that they practically have to re-create the language itself from their own immersions in it. Whatever they are doing is worth doing. Cebuanos must re-learn to appreciate the deeper and finer usage ofl the native language. They must be willing to invest in the publication of local works--Sunstar Superbalita and Bisaya may be commended for this. And we must re-learn to read in our own language.


* The International Convention on the Rights of the Child 
 

 And last but not least, the Philippines did sign and ratify  the International Convention
on the Rights of the Child. Article 29.1 (c) of the Convention provides among other things the at the "States Parties agree that the education of the child shall be directed to the
development of respect for the child's parents, his or her own cultural identity,  language and values, for the national values of the country in which the child is living; the country from which he or she may originate, and for civilizations different from his or her own;"
 
Further, Article 30 of the Convention provides that in "those States in which ethnic, religious or
linguistic minorities or persons of indigenousorigin exist, a child belonging to such a minority or
who is indigenous shall not be denied the right, in community with other membersof his or her
group, to enjoy his or her own culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion, or to use
his or her own language."
 
In submiting Compliance Reports to UNICEF, Philippine authorities generally claim compliance
since the Constitution provides that Section 7, Article XIV of the Constitution provides that the
regional languages are auxiliary official languages and auxiliary languages of instruction. This is
duplicitous and intellecually dishonest, While Section 3 (g) lof RA 7104, the law creating
the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino defines auxiliary language thus:" refers to a particular language,
 spoken in certain places, which supports or helps the national and/or official languages in their
assigned functions", neither the auxiliary languages provisions of the Constitution nor the definition
in RA 7104 have been made opertional. It is all lip service. How can this be considered as conpliance?
 
* Concluding Statements
 
We should really consider the foresight of Gibo Teodoro.This is best summarized in what Sionil F. Jose
wrote in his column,  Light at the end of the tunnel  HINDSIGHT on his interview with Gibo Teodoro 
(The Philippine Star) Updated January 10,2010 12:00 AM


Sionil F. Jose: "Some two decades ago, James Fallows of the Atlantic
Monthly postulated that our 'damaged culture' hinders our
development. If culture both as anthropological and aesthetic
concept is a factor in the building of a nation, how will you handle it?"


Gibo Teodoro: "I believe that the effort to disregard the rich cultural 
diversity of our country led to a lot of damage. The single language, single
ideology line of nation-building has not been a positive development for our
country. It has bred bigotry and division. I believe that we must accept that
we are diverse. We are an archipelago, for heaven's sake. We must encourage
that diversity and teach each other what we are, so that a culture of tolerance
and respect evolves. Even the contributions of our colonizers such as languages,
both Spanish and English, must be appreciated and their use enhanced.
The world itself because of increasing interconnections is getting increasingly
culturally aware. We should be the same in our own country"