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In last week’s column, I made an open reply to a reader who had
expressed disgust over the fumbling response of beauty contest
aspirant Janina San Miguel to a question during the recent
Binibining Pilipinas finals. I contended that Ms. San Miguel had
been stumped probably not so much because of English inadequacy or
the jitters, but because the question—“What role did your family
play to you as candidate to Binibining Pilipinas?”—was so
badly phrased and was too vague, too abstract, and too difficult to
answer.
That question, I said, would require a very
strong rhetorical flair that couldn’t be expected from a
17-year-old nonnative English speaker. I then challenged readers to
role-play for exactly 60 seconds and try to answer that question
sensibly.
Two readers observed that the question that had
so befuddled Ms. San Miguel wasn’t really that difficult to
understand, then vigorously took up my challenge by coming up with
several suggested answers that might have satisfied the contest
judges and the general public as well. Before discussing those
answers in detail, however, I would like to first take up the views
of two other readers—views that I believe could help us establish
clearer benchmarks for assessing our problems with English as a
people.
Here’s what Mr. Alberto T. Pangilinan, a
senior payroll specialist working in the United States, thinks:
“I agree with your premise 100 percent that
the way the question was phrased was definitely out of bounds.
Clearly, however, the shift in the country’s mode of school
instruction from English to Tagalog did not help Ms. San Miguel and
would not help other Filipinos in similar situations. I wish you
could publish your response to Mr. Roquito Lorenzo’s question in
other publications aside from The Manila Times so others may learn
from your insightful explanation.
“I also wanted to get your opinion on whether
it is proper for local folks when being interviewed on network TV
back home to continually shift from English to Tagalog and vice
versa. When the news footage is shown on the international news
here, their responses are sometimes difficult to follow or
understand, and a lot of folks here in the States are driven bonkers
by them.”
And here’s what Ms. Faye Tierro-Mendiola, a
long-time US resident, thinks:
“I read your column and I agree with you.
Unbeknown to me, the country’s medium of instruction is now
Tagalog. Since when was this? I’ve been living in the US for 33
years, but I go to the Philippines every year to participate in a
medical mission.
“We Filipinos used to be very proud that
our medium of instruction was English. In fact, people of other
nationalities—even Americans—used to be jealous over how
fluently we spoke English and how good we were with English
spelling. But I guess the situation there is not like this
anymore.”
Here’s my joint reply to Mr. Pangilinan and
Ms. Tierro-Mendiola:
The shift from English to Filipino as our medium
of instruction may have contributed to Ms. San Miguel’s fumbling
answer, but I think not much. As I explained last week, I think the
bigger contributory factor was the low quality and low
comprehensibility of the question itself.
Yes, Filipino was adopted as our language of
instruction under the 1987 Philippine Constitution. But on May 17,
2003, to reverse the declining English literacy of Filipinos,
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued Executive Order No. 210
restoring English as the primary medium of instruction. However, in
April 2007, some educators supportive of the Filipino language
challenged the legality of this executive order before the Supreme
Court, where the matter is still pending.
As to TV news footages abroad showing Filipinos
shifting from English to Tagalog and vice versa during interviews,
there’s not much we can do about it. That’s really how most
educated Filipinos speak today in the home setting.
j8carillo@yahoo.com
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