believe it or not.  the komisyon sa wikang filipino (KWF), based in malacanang, and headed by national artist virgilio almario aka rio alma, saw fit to pass a resolution last april 12 that would change the nation’s name, from philippines (of american times to today) and pilipinas (of lope k. santos’ time to today) to filipinas (of spanish times only).  why?  read Patayin ang ‘Pilipinas’ by almario himself.

not surprisingly, pinagtawanan ito sa social media. paano na nga naman: it’s more fun in filipinas?  it’s more fun in the filipinas?  in las filipinas?  any of the above, ang fangit.  but seriously, i share the sentiments of these facebook friends:

Zeus Salazar: hindi ko yata mabibigkas ang ‘ep’. ito naman ang kabulastugang ifinalulunok sa atin dahil sa kabulastugang ifinalunok sa atin noong dekada 1970 nang pinalitan ang ‘pilipino’ ng ‘filipino’ para di-umano maging katang-tanggap ang wikang pambansang base sa tagalog sa lahat. hanggang ngayon pilipino o tagalog ang tawag dito ng nkararaming pilipino. mamaya-maya tatawagin naman ng mga may pakana nito ang ‘pilipinas’ na ‘filipinas’ kahit na hindi natin mabigkas ito. wala na ibang magawa sila, yung may katuturan naman at intelehente. kung lagi na lamang mapapalit kung anu-ano, ano ba ang magiging permanente sa atin. pasiya ba ito ng bayan?

Adam David: Nais ko ring magsangguni ng pagpapalit ng paggamit ng pangngalan/pangalan na simpatiko at romantiko sa ating kasaysayan ng kolonyalismo: “comfort women” imbis na “biktima ng panggagahasa sa panahon ng digma.”

Nawa’y ipagpatibay ang paggamit ng katagang ito para sa ikauunlad ng modernong bansang Filipinas.

 Marck Ronald Rimorin: …this should be made clear: the key stakeholders in the name of a nation are the people, not the office in charge of language (or the poet in charge of that office). “Filipinas” may be correct, but that doesn’t mean “Pilipinas” is wrong. And any sort of “pagpipigil” to use the latter is another height in the peaks of apog.

Adam David: I dunno, Ser Rio, China and Japan seem pretty unified to me, despite various names for their countries/nations/citizens even within their respective countries all these centuries. Try again after another twenty years?

Marck Ronald Rimorin: To be out of touch with the people’s language is to be out of touch with the people. The ivory tower is often just a pile of lime.

i agree too with neil garcia’s response to jerry gracio’s fb status:

Jerry Gracio: Okay, I signed KWF Resolution No. 13-19, s. 2013, so I am for “Filipinas”. Dahil may “F” na sa Filipino alphabet at dati nang may “F” ang mga katutubong lengguwahe sa Filipinas tulad ng Ivatan, Tiruray, Bontoc, Igorot, Bilaan, Tiboli, etc. Maniwala kayo, hindi ito dahil sa mga layuning pambakla: para matanggap na sa lengguwahe ang “fafa” at “fadir”. Mareremedyuhan nito ang problema kung bakit Philippines ang bansa natin pero Filipino ang ating nationality at wika. Totoong hindi nito masasagot ang iba pa nating problema, tulad ng kahirapan, korapsyon, etc.–rebolusyon ang kailangan natin para matapos ang mga ito. Nahihirapan tayong tanggapin ang “Filipinas” dahil maiksi ang ating memorya: naalala natin ang “Pilipinas” na lumitaw lang noong ika-20 siglo at lumaganap noong 1950s, pero hindi na natin maalala na “Filipinas” ang pangalan ng ating bansa mula noong 1543, at “Filipinas” ang tawag sa ating bansa ng ating mga bayani sa panahon ng Rebolusyong Filipino. Naniniwala ako, masasanay din tayo sa Filipinas.

J. Neil C. Garcia:  sorry, jerry, the rationale being presented just isn’t good enough, to my mind.  remember that we are not fighting over letters here.  the f sound might as well be spelled as ph, for finally the letters of the alphabet are nothing if not phonetic approximations of actual speech.  the existence of this sound in our local languages isn’t the issue, really. read more closely: the argument being pushed is ‘historical’: filipinas was the name actually given by villalobos to these islands, which–we must remember–wasn’t really this country yet, not in terms of geography, nor certainly in terms of consciousness and/or identity. it is precisely by virtue of a historicizing perspective that we must accept pilipinas and philippines.  pilipinas is a localization–a creolization–of this original hispanic name, and the simple truth is that both it and philippines (the anglicized version of filipinas) have already achieved a reality in both national and transnational senses–both are already what we, and our country, have come to be.  i don’t see what purpose this orthographic revision will serve in our nation’s ‘being/becoming.’

ang dami nating language and identity problems, and ‘pilipinas’ is not one of them.  sana magpakatino na ang KWF at baguhin naman ang priorities, iakma naman sa nangyayari on the ground, tanggapin na laganap na ang tagalog (yes, tagalog pa rin ang tawag ng nakararami sa national vernacular), tanggapin rin na hindi ito ang klaseng ‘filipino’ (the language) na in-envision o type nila, but hey it’s alive and kicking, playful and irreverent as always, except that it’s gotten so grammatically and semantically sloppy.  i don’t know about the teleseryes, but both the english and tagalog of newscasts leave much to be desired.

check out james soriano, wikang pambansa 101, scroll down to lem garcellano’s rant on broadcast media’s faulty tagalog.  hindi ba ito dapat ang pinapakialaman ng KWF?  the commission has access to government tv, bakit hindi mag-produce ng isang programa na magmo-monitor at magkokomento, magwawasto, kapag may naririnig o nababasa na maling tagalog.  for starters.

the question being asked, of course, is, sino bang kikita dito?  sinong kikita kung maging batas ito at simulan ang pagpalit ng pangalan ng pilipinas sa mga kuwarta ng bayan at mga karatula at letterhead ng gobyerno?  raket lang, di ba.  utang na loob, sobra na, tantanan na ang bayang pilipinas.

what offends me most is that, to explain the killing of ‘pilipinas’, almario throws at us an essay he wrote 20 years ago (!) as he can’t be bothered, twould seem, up in his ivory tower, to come up (down) with something current for us lowly earthlings, how arrogant naman.  o baka naman na sa 1992 pa rin siya, national artist award and all, and he has nothing new to say to nation?  maliwanag kung gayon na napag-iwanan na siya ng panahon and he has no business messing around with our notions of nation and language.

*

Filipinas at Pilipinas bilang pangalan ng bansa ni Danny Arao

What the F by Marck Ronald Rimorin

WFT KWF! or what is wrong with Pilipinas? by radikalchick