just a thought: whats filipino isnt quite the language, but the culture, which is pan-philippine, and which is a function of our national situatedness, our common experiences, aspirations, sorrows, and joys as a nation... seeing the issue within this larger frame--of culture, rather than language per se--it becomes possible to imagine how being filipino admits to the possibility of speaking and thinking in many different languages, which are all in fact registers of filipino. it should be possible to reframe the teaching of this subject (especially on the secondary to the teritiary levels) from a cultural studies viewpoint, which will pluralize the idea of filipino mediums of expression and analysis, and indeed allow for a more open approach to the question of language,which will now be subsumed under the larger category of culture. the object of study will be all the different cultural texts that constitute filipinoness, and the language to be used will be determined by what these texts require, which should logically vary according to the region the particular classroom is located in... a star cinema film will probably best be discussed in tagalog, for example. but in the same classroom (in vigan, for instance), an ilocano story will most certainly require the discussion to be conducted in ilocano (of course, realistically, code-shiftings will be inevitable--and thats actually part of the point of this new philosophy). the revamping of the general education curriculum presents the opportunity to rethink what these traditional subjects can do and be: to my mind, it would be best to turn them into cultural research seminars or workshops, which will necessitate a bi- or multi-lingual, eclectic, and multi-media reading list, as well as emphasize the textuality of everyday filipino life, that indeed can be read on one hand, and written (and/or rewritten) on the other...
Posted on: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 20:57:51 +0000