BAHASA LANGUAGE. A Bisaya-speaking Malaysian language professor in Singapore told a group of Filipino language teachers: “I believe it would be for the best of Asean unity if Philippine schools would teach Bahasa in the lower grades.” Bahasa is the language spoken in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Singapore.
DIFFERENT. The Malaysian professor said the Philippines is different from its neighbors in the Indo-Malay region in the sense that only the Filipinos do not speak nor understand Bahasa. “Filipinos are Malays like the Indonesian, Bruneians, Malaysians, etc. but they are more Hispanized,” he said.