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THE Philippines will have a good opportunity to
present its long-term economic and social gains at the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation meeting this weekend and unwrap plans to
strengthen ties with the countries that comprise the group.
The leaders are expected to
discuss urgent security, economic and environmental concerns as
global warming, international terrorism, stalled world trade talks
and other collective worries stalk the 21 Apec economies and the
rest of the world.
President Arroyo and Foreign
Secretary Alberto Romulo will represent the Philippines in the 15th
Leaders Meeting and the Ministerial Meeting, respectively.
They are expected to convey
recent developments in the country and present the Philippine
position on issues that affect the diverse economies on the Pacific
Rim.
These gains include Manila’s
efforts to protect the environment and its natural resources and
activities to mitigate climate change. The fight against terrorism
banners a hard-won Human Security Act in Congress and a more
muscular military campaign on the Abu Sayyaf. Employment and food
sufficiency are at a better-than-average level. Fiscal and economic
reforms have produced dramatic results: the second-quarter 7.5
percent economic growth is the fastest in 20 years. The country has
had consecutive quarterly growth since 2001.
In a predeparture statement,
Secretary Romulo said that in Sydney, Manila will reaffirm its
commitment to advance the Apec process. This means that the
Philippines will continue to promote regional investment and trade
expansion. The revival of the Doha Development Round of world trade
talks weighs heavily on the Filipinos’ agenda. The Philippines
will underline a more vigorous response to global terrorism and
weather warming. With earthquakes, typhoons, heat waves and floods
hurting developed and developing countries, Manila will seek greater
cooperation in emergency preparedness for, and response to, natural
disasters.
To optimize their visit,
President Arroyo will meet with US President George Bush and
Secretary Romulo with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on the
sidelines of the meetings. Substantive matters are expected to be
taken up at these “pull-aside” sessions, with our leaders
pushing issues that advance the national good and the interest of
the Filipinos. The President’s meetings with other Apec leaders,
CEOs of regional corporations and the Filipino community are a bonus
in the two-day summit.
Said Secretary Romulo: “Our
message to Australia and the world is, the Philippines means
business; our growth will be sustained; we are here for the long
term. It’s time the world took notice.”
Save our languages
Of the 175 to 180-plus languages
of the Filipinos, many are going extinct every so often—there
being only 5, 10, 20 to 1,000 living speakers of those languages.
These are mostly Negrito (or Agta or Aeta) languages. The children
of Agta folk end up speaking only Tagalog, Ilocano or Bisayan. They
might live on for another 70 to 80 years speaking a language not
their own. They are no longer really Agta.
Ethnologists agree that a
language with only 300,000 speakers is a dying language. Under this
definition only about two dozen of the Philippine languages are not
yet moribund.
It shocks people to realize that
all Philippine languages except Tagalog are bound to die. Experts
give both the Kapampangan and Pangasinan languages only 20 years of
remaining life.
Linguistics experts, including
those of the heroic scientists of the Summer Institute of
Linguistics, see this as a result of the government policy (a) to
promote Tagalog as the national language (called Pilipino or
Filipino); (b) to teach Tagalog/Pilipino/Filipino—as the national
language—to all Filipino schoolchildren and (b) to use it as the
preferred medium of instruction alongside English.
This policy—along with other
factors like the Tagalog areas, including Metro Manila, being for
decades the seat of political and commercial power —causes the
native speakers of all other Filipino languages, except Tagalog, to
decline in number and as a percentage of the Philippine population.
This decline has happened not
just to the so-called “minor languages”—such as the languages
of the Agta, Ifugao, Kalinga, Aklanon, T’boli, Maranao, and so
on—whose native-speaker populations are very much less than those
of the eight “major languages” whose native speakers are in the
millions.
Of the eight “major
languages,” Tagalog has the most number of native speakers. In
1948, Tagalog speakers composed only 19 percent of the population.
In 1995 Tagalog speakers made up 29.29 percent of the population;
they are much more now in 2007.
In 1948, Cebuanos made up 25
percent of the population, in 1995 Cebuanos composed only 21.17
percent (less now in 2007).
Here is the decline of the other
“major languages” from 1948 to the present: Ilocano 12 percent
in 1948, now less than 9.31 percent. Ilonggo (or Hiligaynon) 12
percent, now less than 9.11 percent. Bicolano 8 percent, now less
than 5.69 percent. Waray 6 percent, now less than 3.81 percent.
decline is at the top. Kapampangan 3 percent, now less than 2.9
percent. Pangasinan 3 percent, now less than 1.01 percent.
Linguistics scientists forecast
the extinction of the Kapampangan and Pangasinan languages in 20
years. Waray and Bicolano would follow soon enough and the others,
perhaps even including Cebuano, before a century is over.
The death process of the
Philippine languages other than Tagalog is the same everywhere.
Parents no longer encourage their children to speak their native
language because mastery of Tagalog (or Pilipino/Filipino) gives
them an edge in class and later when they go to study in Metro
Manila. In the case of the Aetas, they don’t even realize that
they have lost their languages and that their ethnolinguistic tribes
have only five or ten speakers and that they will soon be extinct.
The Save our Language through
Federalization Foundation Inc. campaigns for the reduction of the
importance of Tagalog in the school system because every inch of
added Tagalog dominance means an inch nearer to extinction for the
other languages.
SOLFED also recommends that the
other languages be used with English as the medium of instruction in
their respective territories.
It also urges that the government
undertake the work that so far only the Summer Institute of
Linguistics has been doing for our vanishing tribal and aboriginal
languages: Recording these and publishing syllabuses that will at
least preserve a knowledge of these languages.
Language, culture and traditions
define a people. No matter how much Kapampangan blood still flows in
a person’s veins, he would no longer be a Kapampangan if he
cannot speak and understand the language of his ancestors, read the
writings of Juan Crisostomo Soto and Amado Yuzon or appreciate the
Crissotan poetical jousts.
We believe laws must be passed to
fund and organize the effort to save or at least preserve in writing
and through syllabuses our “minor” languages.
We owe it to our future
generations not to waste treasures of our human diversity. Let it
not be said of our generation that we paid more attention to saving
animal and plant species than our own human species.
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