Abstract
The Republic of the Philippines consists of a group of some 7,100 islands of varying size, of which only 730 are inhabited. Located just north of the equator, it stretches about 1,132 miles (1,820 km.) from north to south and about 688 miles (1,100 km.) from east to west; the area (115,830 sq. mi. – 300,000 sq. km) is roughly comparable to that of Wisconsin and Illinois combined—or to that of Ecuador, Vietnam, or Poland. (See Appendix A, Figure 8.) The northernmost islands lie some 330 miles (530 km.) from the mainland of Asia, facing the straits of Luzon and the island of Taiwan; to the east lies the Philippine Sea, to the south lies the Celebes Sea and the archipelago of Indonesia; the Sulu Sea and the island of Borneo lie to the southwest, and the South China Sea and the east coast of continental Vietnam lie to the west. The islands consist of three major sub-groups; the Luzon group (including Luzon [41, 765 sq. mi.—the largest island and the site of the Capitol, Quezon City, and of Manila] and Mindaro [3, 759 sq. mi.]); the Visayan group (including Bohol [1,590 sq. mi.], Cebu [1,965 sq. mi.], Leyte [3,090 sq. mi.], Masbate [1, 262 sq. mi.], Negros [4, 905 sq. mi.], Palawan [4, 550 sq. mi.], Panay [4,446 sq. mi.] and Samar [4,050 sq. mi.]); and the Mindanao group (Mindanao [36,537 sq. mi.] and the islands of the Sulu Archipelago [c. 400 islands with a total area of 1,086 sq. mi.]).
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Notes
The population is growing at the rate of approximately two per cent per year, and it is anticipated that it will exceed 100 million by 2020.
The Treaty of Paris granted independence to Cuba; Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the United States, and the Philippines were transferred to the United States in exchange for a payment of U.S.$20, 000, 000. The Spanish-American War and the Treaty of Paris launched the United States into imperialist activity. Two years after the Treaty of Paris, the United States Senate introduced the Piatt Amendment to the Treaty, establishing a U.S. protectorate over the islands.
The war started with the Japanese attack on the United States military (naval) base at Pearl Harbor, near Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands, on 7 December 1941. Heavily outnumbered U.S. troops in the Philippines surrendered in May 1942. President Quezon escaped and established a Philippine government in exile in Washington, DC, on 13 May 1942. Quezon died in 1944 and was succeeded by Sergio Osmeña, his Vice President.
The number ranges, in different reports, from 70 to 200, depending upon the definition of language and dialect employed in the counting process.
For a more thorough discussion of the distribution of speakers of these languages, see, e.g., Gonzalez 1982, 1999. The percentages are taken from Gonzalez (1999: 136–138).
Other members of the Austronesian family are spoken in Taiwan (aboriginal inhabitants—see Chapter on Taiwan); Vietnam and Cambodia (small minority groups); Madagascar; Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei; Melanesia (Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji); Micronesia (Belau, Guam, Northern Marianas, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru); Polynesia (Tuvalu, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna, Samoa, Tokelau, Niue, Hawaii, French Polynesia, Cook Islands, New Zealand, Easter Island). (See, e.g., Clark 1992, Lynch 1998, Wurm and Hattori 1981.)
In 1848, a revolutionary movement of an essentially democratic and nationalistic character spread across nearly all of Europe and completely transformed the political life of the continent. It started with a local uprising in Sicily in January, spread to France in February and through the rest of that year spread across the whole of Europe (except only Russia, Spain and the Scandinavian states). Among the objectives was universal suffrage and the development of democratic constitutions. In actual fact, many of the reforms won in the revolution were lost in the restoration in the immediately following years through the use of national armies and military repression.
Bolivar ‘liberated’ what are present day Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and Venezuela between 1813 and 1824, and by 1824 effectively ended Spanish power in Latin America.
In the 1890s, Rizal translated the “Declaration of the Rights of Man” an outcome of the French Revolution, into Tagalog.
According to the Philippine census of 1870, conducted by Agustin de la Cavada y Méndez de Vigo, out of a total population of 4, 653, 263, only 114, 463 individuals spoke Spanish (cited in Gonzalez 1980). Thus, there were few Spanish speakers to teach Spanish or to serve as role models in the Philippines.
A national anthem was composed and published in Spain on 3 September 1899 in Spanish.
According to the 1870 census, approximately 2.46 per cent of adults out of a total population of 4, 653, 263 individuals spoke Spanish. Under Spanish control, education was not widely disseminated. It is important to note that, after more than 300 years of Spanish rule, such a small percentage of the population were fluent in Spanish. The fact that Spanish was declared the language of government in 1899 is indicative of the segment of the population playing important roles in the First Republic.
Under this law, the right to vote was extended to those who: i.) had held local office prior to the U.S. occupation, or ii.) owned real property to the value of 500 pesos, or paid not less than 30 pesos in taxes annually, or iii.) were able to speak, read and write English or Spanish. Literacy in any Philippine language did not count (Hayden 1947).
Laws enacted by the Philippine Assembly (1907–1916) were written in Spanish and English.
These acts, which lay the foundation for the bicameral Philippine legislature, stipulated (Section 13) that: “.. .no person shall be an elective member of the Senate of the Philippines who is not a qualified elector over thirty years of age, and who is not able to read and write either the Spanish or English language”; and further stipulated (Section 14): “...no person shall be an elective member of the House of Representatives who is not a qualified elector over twenty-five years of age, and who is not able to read and write either the Spanish or English language, and who has not been an actual resident of the district from which elected for at least one year immediately prior to his election....” The Jones Law apparently was more liberal; Section 15 stipulated that: “...those who are able to read and write either Spanish or English, or a native language...” were permitted to vote. This is the first time that an indigenous language was recognised during the ‘American Period, ‘ although it qualified one to vote, not to stand for office (Hayden 1947).
e g., La Voz del Pueblo Filipino (Spanish-English-Tagalog); see Tinio (1990).
Kapulungan ng Wika (1904—Conference on Language), Samahan ng Mananagalog (1908— Association of Tagalog users), Academia de Tagalistas (1911—Academy of Tagalog Scholars), Saghiran san Binisaya (1909—Bisayan Academy), Akademya ng Wikang Filipino (1914—Academia de la lengua Filipino/Academy of the Filipino Language), Giming Dagali Umiiloko (1927— Academia Ilocana) and a number of others through the 1920s and 1930s, some still active. It is interesting to note that these various groups are named in Philippine vernaculars and in Spanish. These various bodies involved the most distinguished Philippine linguists of the time. Several grammars of Philippine languages were published during this period.
There were 45 delegates from Tagalog areas and 156 from non-Tagalog areas (see, e.g., Gonzalez 1980:46).
Proposals were reviewed recommending the following possibilities: English as sole official language; English and Spanish as co-official languages; Tagalog as the basis of the national language; the creation of a national language academy to study the possibility of a common national language; the selection of a vernacular as the common language through a plebiscite.
Officially, “An Act to Establish a National Language Institute and Define its Powers and Duties.”
On 18 June 1938, the National Assembly amended Commonwealth Act 184 (by enacting Commonwealth Act 333) to change the name of the NLI to the Institute of National Language (INL—Surian ng Wikang Pambansa).
It was most fortunate that the Chair of the Institute was Cecilio Lopez, perhaps the only formally trained linguist in the Philippines.
This despite the fact that the 1939 census showed that only 22.1 per cent (of a total population of 16, 000, 303) were probably speakers of Tagalog, while 77.9 per cent were non-Tagalog speakers, of whom 40.1 per cent were Bisayan speakers; thus, accounting for the opposition to the choice of Tagalog by Cebuano speakers.
This is not the language of the original charge; I have taken the liberty of inserting linguistic terminology in what was a laic text. It is necessary to note that the charges included phonological, morphological and lexicographic work, but apparently omitted syntax.
A junior version of the KALIB API (for those under 18 years of age) was established in May 1943.
The legality of this Constitution (and in fact of the preceding Constitutions [1899, 1935] and the next iteration of the Constitution [1973]) was open to challenge and the status of Tagalog as nation language was also challenged in the post-war years.
See the chapter on the Two Koreas—especially section 5.3, The Munhwae [Cultured Language] Period (1964-the present)—for a similar approach advocated in North Korea.
Officially, the Agreement between the United States of America and the Republic of the Philippines Concerning Trade and Related Matters during a Transitional Period following the Institution of Philippine Independence.
The renaming of the language was a trick done with mirrors intended to pacify the non-Tagalog population, but the renaming was not given much credibility by most non-Tagalogs. The prescription for using it as medium of communication was observed more in the breach.
Out of the language wars emerged other organisations and groups working outside the INL; a whole series of technical vocabulary lists was publish in the late 1960s and early 1970s by one of these groups, but the Pilipino lexicon created for these lists was not widely adopted by speakers.
Similar student movements were simultaneously occurring in the U.S. and in other countries in the West; there, these movements involved protest against the War in Vietnam as well.
Those agreements included the Bell Trade Act (1946) amended in 1955 by the Laurel-Langley Agreement, continuing trade agreements such as the Economic and Technical Co-operation Agreement (1951), the Agreement Granting Entry Rights to American Traders and Investors (1953), Agricultural Commodities Agreements, the Military Bases Agreement (1947), Military Assistance Agreement (1947), Mutual Defence Treaty (1951), Southeast Asia Collective Defence Treaty (1954), Peace Corps activity in the Philippines, and Asia Foundation activity (since the Asia Foundation was believed to be funded by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency [CIA].)
But in April 1970 the ruling was qualified to the effect that the policy would be implemented only if there were sufficient materials available and only when teachers were sufficiently trained.
The Interim National Assembly next met in 1978.
There were 5 TV channels in Metro Manila and 424 radio stations across the country. Two-thirds of households owned radio receivers, and there were two million TV receivers in a population of about 48 million.
In the early 1980s, there were seven major dailies (two in Pilipino) and two business dailies and several trade dailies all in English. Weekly magazines were roughly equally in English and Pilipino. Komiks [comic books] were the most popular print medium, read by about thirty per cent of the population, all in Pilipino. About 700 books (of which only about ten per cent were not textbooks) were published each year, largely written in English.
Between 1936 and 1939 it had been known as the National Language Institute.
A major influence on the retention and importance of English is the official governmental encouragement to seek overseas employment (a measure to reduce home unemployment and provide a source of foreign currency). The Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs—previously the Overseas Contract Workers OCWs] program, administered by the Philippine Overseas Employment Agency, places individuals on the basis of their English proficiency and their technical skills in seamanship, health sciences, technology and management.
There are some 18 million students at all levels of the educational system, based on 1997–98 school-year data. Two-thirds of the total population of the Philippines is under 25 years of age
Kaplan, when working in the Philippines in 1980, spent a great deal of time (parked in traffic) with a driver assigned to him by the U.S. Embassy. During this exposure, Kaplan conducted an informal sociolinguistic survey of this single individual. He was a native speaker of Cebuano (a language he used with his family in informal settings); he was married to a Waray woman and he had learned Waray to deal with his in-laws. He lived in Manila and needed Tagalog for neighbourhood interactions; his children were learning Pilipino in school. He worked for the U.S. Embassy and needed English on the job, and to buy luxury goods. Further, he volunteered, he and his friends used English in their informal social activities (i.e., drinking) because, in his words, “English was a good language to swear in.”
There is no formal language policy for the media; however, the Society of Broadcasters in The Philippines [Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters sa Pilipinas (KPB)] agreed, in the early 1970s, on the balanced use of Pilipino and English songs played over the radio.
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Kaplan, R.B., Baldauf, R.B. (2003). Language Planning in the Philippines. In: Language and Language-in-Education Planning in the Pacific Basin. Language Policy, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0145-7_5
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