We were studying a reviewer on Filipino at that time. And everything was carrying on smoothly, everyone seemed to know about the questions and how the answers came to be. That was until my sister and I got confused with a certain question. It went on like this:
"_(blank) Jerry, Ivan, at Kyle ay sabay-sabay na nagpunta sa beach."
The answer to the question was 'Sina'. And its nearest translation in English would be, "Jose, Ivan, and Kyle went to the beach together."
After explaining the question and it's answer, our teacher, Mrs. Julieth Buis, asked us all one at a time, "Naintindihan nyo na? (Have you understood?)".
Everyone answered her in the affirmative. When it was finally our turn to be asked, she repeated, "Naintindihan nyo na?". I was already finished analyzing the question and quite understood it, so I answered 'yes' also. My sister on the other hand, was still confused so she said 'no'. Ma'am Buis stopped and smiled, then told our classmates in Filipino, "It is because, you know, their language at home... is English." Then came our classmates exclaiming things like, "Woah!", I even heard one of them saying "cool".
Nevertheless, all I know was at that time, my sister and I felt so embarrassed that we hid our faces from everyone else.
A few questions asked after that was about the famous quotation from our country's national hero, Jose Rizal. And it was, "Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa ang amoy sa malansang isda" (He who does not know how to love his own language smells worse than a foul fish).
Now that everyone knew that we spoke English at home, we saw about 3-5 of our classmates look at us mockingly. We felt like... SHAMED!
It was the first thing we told our mother when we arrived home as she asked, "So how was your review dears?"... It was also the first thing we told everyone else. We all laughed after we told them about it. That was, except our father. He told us that Filipino was not the only official language of the Philippines but English as well. Then he gave us a brief lesson about languages in the Philippines, then we took up the history of the Philippine constitution using online references.
After about an hour, we were satisfied with our father's explanation. He then let us memorize the whole of Section 7 of Article 14 of the Philippine Constitution on Language. He also told us that if we wanted to become lawyers, we should practice memorizing lines like this word for word, nothing more, nothing less.
The Philippine Constitution states that:
What we often forget whenever the famous Rizal quote is mentioned are the facts that we still didn't have a national language nor a national identity when he said it. But when we talk about those lines today, it was as if it was only meant for Tagalog and not intended for Visayan, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Maranao, Maguindanao and the rest of languages in the Philippines. So that, a Manoboh or an Ita who speaks his own language and cannot speak any other Filipino language cannot be guilty of Rizal's words.For purposes of communication and instruction, the official languages of the Philippines are Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English.The regional languages are the auxiliary official languages in the regions and shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction therein.Spanish and Arabic shall be promoted on a voluntary and optional basis.
By the way, in our ALS Review Class, the module said it was Francisco Balagtas who said those lines. Like Rizal who was from Laguna, Balagtas was a Tagalog, from Bulacan.
It was understandable for them to say it because the Spanish language had dominated Tagalog as a medium of communication at that time. In fact, the first Malolos Constitution in 1899 had to use Spanish as the official language for the "meantime". Let us read below the Title 14 Article 93 of the Malolos Constitution :
The use of languages spoken in the Philippines shall be optional. Their use cannot be regulated except by virtue of law, and solely for acts of public authority and in the courts. For these acts the Spanish language may be used in the meantime.
What happened during our Review Class opened up a wider perspective for us about what language really is. My GREAT thanks to those classmates of ours who gave us mocking stares, my sister and I got to learn something new and very significant about our country's constitution and history! LOL!
Wassalam...
References: http://www.chanrobles.com
