OUR geographical reality that the Philippines is made up of 7,100 islands is one of the reasons ours is a linguistically diverse nation. We have more than one native dialect in every major island. By the latest count of the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino, there are 134 languages spoken or used in the country, including the Filipino Sign Language.
To illustrate, in the island of Bohol, a dialect is spoken by residents of just one or two towns, with another dialect used in the succeeding towns to pass by as you travel. There was even the joke that the bridge connecting Hagonoy in Bulacan and Apalit in Pampanga is the longest bridge in the Philippines because an egg is called “itlog” in Hagonoy and when you cross the bridge, it has hatched into a bird, termed “ebon” in Kapampangan.
Small wonder that our leaders since the time of President Manuel L. Quezon have endeavored to unite the nation under just one flag and one national language. While the first goal is easy, the second one they found very difficult because of the diverse culture and tongues of native Filipinos.
‘To us, pushing with pride means using, promoting and developing Filipino in government offices, homes, schools, media, sectoral organizations and local communities…’
During the Commonwealth period, President Quezon worked seriously to unify the various islands, tribes and localities with various cultures and mores through the development and use of a single national language.
He pushed for inclusion in the draft 1935 Constitution the provision about the need to legislate the “development of a national language which will be based on one of the existing native languages.” He believed that the nation of some 7,100 islands and more than 100 ethnolinguistic groups will achieve greater unity and cooperation — and thus accelerate economic progress — by having one single dominant national language.
Commonwealth Act 184 then directed a national committee composed of language experts in Hiligaynon, Ilocano, Bicol, Samarnon, Cebuano, Tagalog, Maranao-Maguindanao, Pampango and Pangasinan, and they finally chose Tagalog.
Making Tagalog — Luzon’s dominant language — the basis of the national language has not been easy, especially when it reached the implementation stage. Complaints and contrary ideas emanated from Cebu and other places in the Visayas. Other historians and academic writers believe the dominance of Tagalog may be traced to the fact that all our Presidents came from Luzon save for four — Sergio Osmeña, Manuel Roxas, Carlos P. Garcia, and Rodrigo Duterte.
It took two constitutional conventions — 1973 and 1987 — for the founding fathers to finally settle on Filipino as the national language. For now, Filipino shares with English as the official and everyday language used in government, mass media, schools, homes and the streets.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said speaking a foreign language is not the ultimate measure of one’s intelligence, thus Filipinos should participate and contribute to the national effort to enrich the National Language. He stressed that “the nation’s future will be brighter if we will push with pride our national language.”
To us, pushing with pride means using, promoting and developing Filipino in government offices, homes, schools, media, sectoral organizations and local communities, and ensuring that our national language will not die like Gaelic, Coptic and Latin.
