With this in mind, some words of caution: Reducing the complexity of the issue at hand by not factoring in the country’s dismal state of basic education and the repressive dynamics of cultural hegemony in our neo-colonial environment would be misleadingly uncritical, to say the least.

Just to illustrate one concern, what good would achieving mastery over a language be if it would most likely threaten to facilitate our transition into just better consumers of information and technologies that come from industrialized countries? The difference between Japan, China and the Philippines is that the first two don’t currently boast of a cheap,”English-speaking,” servile workforce as their main industrial output. Besides, their respective histories of development also attest to the importance of having a responsive education curriculum anchored on the use of L1 as medium of instruction.

Globalization favors only the already globally competitive, and history has proven since whenever that powerful nations who possess significant advantages over others in matters that have a profound bearing on world influence and dominance will always look for ways to undermine the efforts of those who’ll try to take these advantages away. True industrialization is the means towards becoming genuinely globally competitive – not the (mere illusion of) advantage that others look forward to obtaining by simply mastering and co-opting the English language.

It’s the proper use of Filipino as a base for a critical, relevant, and responsive national basic education curriculum that should ultimately pave the way for true national development. At kapag okey na ito, matatangay na rin pati yung ambisyong ma-master ang English, French, German, o kung anupamang wika ang mapag-tripang aralin ng sambayanang Pilipino, kahit lumabas na Pig Latin pa siya. =)

I’m an American of Filipino descent, whose vernacular lineage is Ilokano. May I agree with you 100%.

In addition, those Filipinos -Ilokanos, Cebuanos and other non-Tagalog dialects,- who are 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation American, whose Filipino forefathers endured discrimination, cultural barriers, and vulgar stereotyping, speak English and “maybe” speak and understand thier provincial tongues.

THEN, you have FOB’s from Manila, who come to the U.S., and have the AUDACITY to ask us, “why didn’t we learn tagalog? We answer, WHAT THE FUCK are you talking about? That is a FOB! A TRUE, TRUE fuckin’ FOB! Pardon my “French”.

They assume, Filipino’s whose forefathers arrived in the United States 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s have an obligation to speak Tagalog, while they are either visiting or just arrived like “yesterday.” They know nothing about us, yet THEY ARE MAKING THE RULES of what a Filipino should be like.

Two words, FUCK THEM and FUCK TAGALOG!

Then, that leaves the door wide open, for us, to start mimicking their accent-infested embarassing English! Then, we are the bad guys, of course. Go figure.

I agree with Ryan about English being used as the medium of instruction. A lot of Filipinos may not be comfortable speaking it now, but over time instruction and sheer exposure will improve their competency. It isn’t an issue of identity or standing up to our former colonial master or whatever. Learning English is sheer practicality.

Let’s face it, we’re enmeshed in a global society and whether we like it or not the language of that society is English. Even ethnocentric societies like Japan and China recognize the necessity and are now struggling to learn the language, often to the amusement of the rest of the world (hello, engrish.com). We make fun of the Filipinos command of the English language but if you travel around the developing world, you’ll see that everyone is trying to learn it, and if it were a race the Filipinos would be far ahead of most.

I firmly believe we should have english as the medium of instruction and all schools to teach whatever dialect they want as a secondary language, be it tagalog, bisaya, ilocano, kapampangan, etc.