The use of Filipino as a medium of instruction in tertiary education is not under threat from government policy but from biased educational institutions, according to the Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF).
In a press conference on Monday, KWF chairman and National Artist Virgilio S. Almario stressed the Commission on Higher Education’s (CHED) Memorandum No. 20, series of 2013, and the recent Supreme Court (SC) decision affirming it does not ban the use of Filipino in college curriculum.
Instead, he explained the CHED memorandum merely makes the it optional for General Education Courses (GEC) in college to be taught in either English or Filipino.
Language prejudice
The problem, Almario said, is that some higher education institutions use the SC decision as an excuse to abolish Filipino subjects from their curriculum and retrench Filipino teachers.
“This is not contained in the Supreme Court decision, but they deliberately misread it because they want to push for English [as their medium of instruction],” Almario lamented.
KWF Director General Anna Katarina B. Rodriguez noted the action is contrary to the spirit of the 1987 Constitution mandating the use of Filipino as the official language in the government and education.
She, however, conceded said provision of the Constitution is deemed “none-self executory,” which means Congress must first pass a law to implement it.
Without an implementing law, unscrupulous tertiary education institutions could continue propagating English in their curriculum with no fear of being sanctioned.
Retooling teachers
To address this, KWF said it is now providing free retooling training to Filipino teachers to boost their competencies so they could teach GECs subjects in colleges and universities.
“We are encouraging teachers to take the training since they will be faced with the challenge of proving GEC subjects could be indeed taught in Filipino,” Rodriguez said.
Since they started offering the retooling last year, KWF said it was able to train over a 100 Filipino teachers.
“We are targeting participants, who could become influencers or those who will be able to board of their schools. They will become the leaders in their respective colleges [in promoting Filipino language],” Rodriguez said.
KWF said it hopes Filipino teachers from state colleges and universities (SUC) will avail of the program to serve as proof GEC subject can be taught using the national language.
“If this is achieved, the private sector would eventually follow,” Almario said.
Remedial legislation
For their long-term solution on the issue, Rodriguez said they will be lobbying in the upcoming 18th Congress to amend Republic Act (RA) 7104, the organic law which created KFW.
Foremost,in proposal for the remedial legislation would be to change to role of KWF from a mere recommending body into the sole authority in enforcing the provisions of the Constitutions on the Filipino language.
“We ask for power to implement policy concerning the [Filipino] language,” Rodriguez said.
Almario said they will be pushing to be given authority in regulating Filipino curriculum, as well as in the creation of Filipino departments on colleges and universities.
Lastly, he said they will be asking for additional resources so they could address the almost impossible task of archiving the 131 known language in the country.
“We will need a bigger budget and additional personnel to conduct the the ethnographic study and archiving of these languages,” Alamario said.
“What is sad is many of these languages have already died,” he added.