“With regional dialects as medium of instruction, mahuhuli tayo sa pansitan!”

[Joe Carillo]

I received the e-mail below from Forum reader Henry M. last June 10, 2013 and invited him to register as a Forum member so he could post it here himself. Since I haven’t heard from him since then, I decided to post his feedback as an open letter.

Reactions are welcome from Forum members, particularly those with a strong interest in Philippine education.

Joe hi!

You seem to be a man of letters and I am just a fellow who voices out ones thoughts when the issue arises.          
I would appreciate if you can shed light on the news about regionalizing the Philippine education. Are you aware that they have instituted regional dialects to replace English as the medium of instruction starting from K-12 nationwide?

If so, how would this impact the future generation who will face this very competitive world?

Outsourcing, like call centers, flourishes in PI because among Asian countries, our medium of instruction has been English from the “git go” (pardon my French). We even beat the Indians who were under the British for 500 years.

Why do you think the Mexicans are the bulk of the American agricultural workforce and in the Chinese oriental markets as well? It’s the language barrier.

If we pursue regionalizing or using dialects as the medium, man, mahuhuli tayo sa pansitan!

Just my thought.

Henry M.

[Joe Carillo]

Forum member Roger Posadas e-mailed this response today to Henry M.'s commentary:

By referring to distinct languages like Ilokano, Cebuano, Maranaw, Bikolano, etc. as "regional dialects", Mr. Henry M. is exposing his ignorance regarding the difference between languages and dialects. Bulacan Tagalog, Batangas Tagalog, Laguna Tagalog are dialects of the Tagalog language just as Bohol Cebuano and Misamis Cebuano are dialects of the Cebuano language.