The shaming of the national languageIF there is one certain indicator of the bias of a person in relation to the issue of our national language, it is to argue that it is Tagalog. The need to build a nation rests on a robust collective soul, and having a national language, which in our case, is a continuing project that has to be nurtured, is an indispensable ingredient. We face a pluralism of regional languages and dialects, and the Constitution has mandated us to evolve a national language, which we now call Filipino. There is no debate that evolving a national language is a contentious process, but one has to start with something that already functions to enable us to communicate and understand each other amidst our national diversity. Those who oppose Filipino take pleasure in further shaming the language by saying that it is a fair decision simply because it is a useless language anyway.

Source: Manila Times November 16, 2018 16:30 UTC