Jose Carillo's English Forum - Pouring Out Your Mind in English

POUR OUT YOUR MIND IN ENGLISH

This page welcomes well-thought-out and well-considered postings in English about any subject under the sun. Postings that will be entertained are original essays, short stories, and verses in the English language written by the forum member himself or herself.

The maximum allowable posting is 1,200 words in 12 points in the standard 8 ½” x 11” typeset format; longer but worthwhile postings will be cut or condensed by the moderator to fit the maximum space allocation.

The objective of this page is to promote and encourage the felicitous use of English in expressing ideas, thoughts, and feelings. By posting material on this page, the member expressly agrees to have it critiqued by fellow members of Jose Carillo’s English Forum. Members making critiques, on the other hand, are enjoined to make their critiques constructive, thoughtful, and helpful.

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Taglish, anyone?
By Apiong, Forum Member

Joe Carillo once asked: “As one of my favorite language slogans says, ‘A society is generally as lax as its language.’ Who’s to blame for this execrable state of affairs and what can we do about it? Any ideas from the other Forum members?"

Well, I have one suggestion in mind that I have expressed in various forums (except this one), for which I earned all kinds of bricks and bats. It is a suggestion that may not ever see the light to fruition. It is controversial but, of course, not to me.

I believe that if English is abandoned in our educational system and in our government affairs, and if it is removed as a mandatory national language, people will revert to our own native Tagalog as our normal communication tool in the daily fabric of our lives.

A word about my use of the word “Tagalog” instead of “Pilipino”: Let's not kid ourselves. Pilipino is supposed to be based on a native national language that happens to be Tagalog, suspiciously by design by the decision-makers. There appears to be no indication that Tagalog has changed into something different than what is called Pilipino. So someone has to be more convincing that Pilipino is not Tagalog, or vice versa.

Anyway, why should the entire country be forced to learn English? Why not make English a voluntary course for anyone who needs it? Possibly only, say, 10% of Filipinos need English as tour guides or interpreters in the diplomatic corps or OFWs or English professors. Why subject the 90% into learning something they don’t need?

The jeepney driver does not need English to memorize traffic laws, nor do crooked cops need a foreign language to extort bribes from jeepney drivers. What mandatory English has wrought on the population is that funny pidgin called Taglish. If foreigners are not laughing, maybe they are just polite.

Anyone who wants to learn English voluntarily may probably write and speak better English than a two-bit crook who has wormed his way into Congress. A serious student of English may be a lot more proficient in it than the highly paid entertainers who mangle both Tagalog and English—to the delight of their fans who themselves may be just as bad in English.

So my proposal is for Filipinos to study English VOLUNTARILY, for the country to remove English from the basic educational curriculum, and for decision-makers to abolish English as a national language because it is a Western foreign language imposed on a people who are basically non-Western in culture.

Maybe in this way, it would be a lot easier for Filipinos to recall and use native words and get rid of hilarious, embarrassing Taglish. They may be able to speak better Tagalog and better English, of course, in the case of those who wish to study English voluntarily.

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