EDITORIAL - We are what we speak

A Manila Bulletin article by James Soriano — “Language, Learning, Identity, Privilege” — has sparked debates on social media about the Filipino national language, which, while conceded generally as yet in the process of evolving, he and some others have mistaken to be Tagalog.

Soriano described Filipino (meaning Tagalog) as the language of the streets. “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.”

Over at the House of Representatives, a day after the Soriano article came out, another language-related faceoff ensued, sidetracking debates on the RH bill. Leyte Rep. Sergio Apostol complained that while he interpolated in English, Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao answered in Tagalog.

Confrontations such as these are bound to happen. Indeed this country could see more of them coming. For while we may be one united country, we are nevertheless fiercely regionalistic. Perhaps it was to avoid trouble that it had to be emphasized that Filipino is still evolving.

It does not help, of course, that the country’s president would himself lead in stoking regionalistic resentments by insisting on talking in Tagalog in very important functions such as the SONA, which he should have done in English to assimilate everyone, not alienate.

Filipinos, regardless of regional identity, actually do not mind President Aquino talking in Tagalog in television interviews, press conferences, and even in the minor speeches he makes from time to time. That is his personal prerogative.

But for the SONA, which is his report to the nation, his should be the one unifying voice heard above all else, understood by all regardless of where his heart may lie and his feet may stand. To achieve that, English is the one language acceptable by all for the purpose.

For while people outside NCR do understand Tagalog when spoken to, it is not the everyday language to them. In their daily lives Ilocanos speak Ilocano, Bicolanos Bicolano. In the Visayas it is Ilonggo and Waray, and mostly Cebuano, especially in Mindanao.

Indeed it is a dead giveaway that, to show solidarity, especially at election time, all politicians try to say a few words in the language of the places they visit. That is an unbidden, and thus more honest, acknowledgement of where we all are as far as language is concerned.