Category: media

journalists in a jam #cj trial

first chay hofilena, rappler‘s citizen journalism director, came out with Why media should connect the dots, where in essence she says that in this historic impeachment trial of a chief justice, media, rather than remain neutral and detached, should search for the truth and, having gained expertise, should then connect the dots, interpret and analyze events, for the public to better understand the issues and their implications.  etc. etc. etc.  obviously it is the rationale for rappler’s biased journalism which they now call citizen journalism.  okay, fine, citizen journalism is about advocacy…

next came the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (cmfr)’s tweet: How is the press faring in its Corona impeachment trial coverage?  there weren’t many replies but mostly asking media to tell it like it is, with less bias, more fairness and objectivity.  mostly directed @inquirer and @cmfr.  curiously, none @rappler.  can it be that respondents are already making a distinction between mainstream and online journalism, between traditional and citizen journalism?  hindi okay na maging biased ang inquirer, pero okay na maging biased ang rappler?  if yes, that’s unexpected, because hofilena does not bother to make any kind of distinction, as though speaking for all journalism…

then came the news that journalists raissa robles, criselda yabes, and maritess danguilan vitug were on the list of prosecution witnesses, but all three are saying they won’t testify.  robles says she has no personal knowledge of the allegations, yabes says she has never written about corona, vitug says her works speak for themselves.

i was still thinking that around when this reaction from lawyer ted te came in:

… calling media practitioners to testify on work product is indicative of a short cut approach to finding the truth; much of the work that media has done in reporting these matters is already part of the public consciousness and may already be considered subject of the collective, institutional and even personal knowledge of the Senate, acting as jury; there is really no need to call media practitioners to testify.

and this from defense spokeslady karen jimeno:

[The] prosecution has pierced the veil of confidentiality with the [income tax returns], let us not drag the media and place it on the witness stand. The Media is not on trial here. Prove your case by doing your work in research and litigation.

at first, i couldn’t understand where ted te was coming from — if what media has reported re cj corona has already become “part of the public consciousness,” would it not do the public good to see and hear the journalists validated, attesting to the reports under oath?

unless, of course, the fear is that the reports are not based on personal knowledge and might not stand up to direct and cross examination?  the “collective knowledge” is based on unfounded reports?  this would explain jimeno’s statement that to put journalists on the witness stand is to put media on trial?

media’s in a fix.  hofilena is saying that journalists are experts in their fields of study:

Because journalists have access to documents and officials elected to public office, they are in a better position to make sense of conflicting versions of the truth. Does this bestow on them the title of “expert?” Does this put them on a pedestal superior to their audience?

Admittedly, a journalist who has done extensive research, spent long hours poring over documents or interviewing insiders and people on the ground with intimate knowledge of details related to the articles of impeachment, earns a degree of expertise. After all, an academic who does the exact same thing in a particular field, is acknowledged as an expert in that field. What makes a journalist any different?

and yet the journalists who-might-be-witnesses do not seem to be confident of their so-called expertise.  because why else would they refuse to testify?  why else would they not jump at the chance to take their anti-corona advocacy to a higher level, help the prosecution prove its case not only via newspapers and news blogs but all the way to the impeachment court?

and what would that say of the quality of the “expert” reportage and analysis we are getting from these journalists?  only good enough for a lethargic … lazy … simply apathetic … and, maybe, a gullible public?

just asking.

calling out ressa

a public apology via social media is in order, methinks.

in case you’re not on facebook or twitter, check out this sequence of tweets over radikalchick’s opinion blog going to the dogs, a follow-up on lito zulueta’s Who will watch the watchdog? that was in response to luis teodoro’s Rule makers and rule breakers — all still about questions that rappler.com, after promising “uncompromised journalism,” refuses to answer, questions re its clear bias against impeached sc chief justice corona whose trial begins today.

thanks to j.o.m. salazar aka randomsalt for finding all the relevant tweets and putting them in sequence via storify:

Rappler CEO Maria Ressa implies blogger guilty of libel 

Tweets exchanged between @angel_alegre, @maria_ressa, @radikalchick, @randomsalt, and @wolverinabee regarding a blog post by @radikalchick on a recent Rappler story re Chief Justice Corona and the University of Santo Tomas. Read that post here: <http://www.radikalchick.com/going-to-the-dogs/>

angel alegre @maria_ressa interesting pov on teodoro-zulueta (and ressa) case: radikalchick.com/going-to-the-dogs [12 jan]

Maria Ressa @angel_alegre funny @radikalchick never asked me before she wrote and am only a tweet away. Guess that separates the pros … [12 jan]

Maria Ressa @angel_alegre I suppose every news group that did a story on memes is paid? Careful abt assumptions. They tell more about the observer. [12 jan]

Maria Ressa @angel_alegre Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but the crowd decides. Thanks for sharing! [12 jan]

KatStuartSantiago @maria_ressa ask you about what exactly? [13 jan]

Maria Ressa @radikalchick Ask for an intvw – before making libelous charges based on assumptions alone. Wouldn’t publish without it.

J.O.M. Salazar @radikalchick Is @maria-ressa accusing you of libel? [13 jan]

katstuartsantiago @randomsalt it seems that is a question for @maria_ressa to answer, don’t you think? [13 jan]

J.O.M. Salazar @radikalchick True. Just startled a pro like @maria_ressa would so readily invoke libel given how it’s been used to harrass journos. [13 jan]

KatStuartSantiago @randomsalt friday the 13th kasi. :) tchaka walang ibang kumu-kuwestyon sa kanila.  [13 jan]

Maria Ressa @randomsalt @radikalchick Would say it’s malicious and unfounded, but would not go as far as filing case. Too much over too little. [13 jan]

J.O.M.Salazar @radikalchick If @maria_ressa bristles at being questioned, she proves her own thesis about PHL power-distance index. bit.ly/zl6gr1  [13 jan]

Maria Ressa @randomsalt @radikalchick Just expected better, I guess. A charge deserves a response bef publishing. [13 jan]

J.O.M. Salazar @maria_ressa Seems to me @radikalchick’s questions are less malicious than say, “Who’s lying, Corona or UST?” @rapplerdotcom [13 jan]

Maria Ressa @randomsalt I actually answer questions. But the questions need to be asked first. [13 jan]

J.O.M. Salazar @maria_ressa She did ask questions. I’m puzzled you think such questions are necessarily malicious. @radikalchick [13 jan]

Maria Ressa @randomsalt sorry, received no questions. Would’ve answered. Did intvws yday with several bloggers. @radikalchick  [13 jan]

Rina (wolverinabee) hhhmm. interesting developments between @maria_ressa and @radikalchick. hoping for healthy, and ultimately instructive discussion. [13 jan]

Maria Ressa @wolverinabee @radikalchick always, hopefully :-) [13 jan]

katstuartsantiago wow. you invoke libel, call my writing malicious & unfounded, and THEN you end with “always, hopefully” and a smiley? wow, @maria_ressa [13 jan]

we missed ressa’s second and third tweets because she didn’t tag @radikalchick — bakit kaya — so for a while there, after reading re-reading radikalchick’s piece, we could only assume that ressa had found offensive these questions that katrina had raised:

… unlike Teodoro, i don’t think there’s anything petty at all about the issues that Zulueta raises here with regards transparency. in the same way that they call out Zulueta for being a UST professor writing for the Inquirer, why can we not question Teodoro for his own link to the CMFR and Business World? why can we not insist that everyone – especially the media personalities who are calling themselves watchdogs — be transparent about their own biases and links to each other?

so for transparency’s sake: i owe Lito Zulueta for getting my feet wet in arts criticism, and publishing me in the Inquirer’s Arts and Book section in 2009. I stopped writing for the Inquirer in 2010.

now let me dare the Ressas and Teodoros of this world: what are the personal links that exist for you? who are you friends with, and can you at any point critique them privately or publicly? does it matter at all that Teodoro is co-writer with Vitug in a CMFR book like Media in Court(1997)?

or maybe, we wondered, it was this that offended?

… a love affair exists among those who are holding the fort of “new media” | “online media” — self-proclaimed and otherwise. if anything i am reminded that in media, as with the literary world, and maybe every aspect of this Pinoy culture, what keeps the status quo are friendships: ones that run deep, ones that are unquestioned from within. the question for Ressa and Teodoro really is whether or not theycould have at any point disagreed with Vitug on this and any story? the question for all of us who blindly want to be invited into the bubble of middle class media and sort-of-NGO work is how many questions will we then fail to ask?

all valid questions.  by no stretch of the imagination is any of it libelous or malicious or unfounded.  it is critical, yes, and is that bawal na ngayon?

moreover, ressa’s insistence that she should have been asked/interviewed first before publishing, as a pro would have done daw, had us falling from our seats in shock.  ano daw?  ano siya.  sacred cow?  and since when have opinion blogs fallen under her purview?

then came J.O.M.’s storify and the second and third ressa tweets: “I suppose every news group that did a story on memes is paid? Careful abt assumptions. They tell more about the observer.” … “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but the crowd decides.”

so where did katrina suggest/assume that “every news group that did a story on memes is paid”?  not here, surely:

rappler has quietly revealed itself to be about helping out government instead of being a critical voice that at the very least asks: how much was paid BBDO for this campaign and is it worth it? i guess no questions like that for “uncompromised journalism” now tagging itself as “citizen journalism.”

katrina was asking how much BBDO got paid, not rappler!  double vision, ressa?  slip of the tweet?  kneejerk defense?

so later she backpedals, but not to take back the libel accusation, and only after using the M word: “Would say it’s malicious and unfounded, but would not go as far as filing case. Too much over too little.”

too little?  she sullies katrina’s good name and the quality of her writing with the L word and the M word, and then says it’s “too little” to file a case over?  after she had deemed it big enough to tweet in no uncertain terms to her 74,782 twitter followers???  and i assume THAT is her “crowd” that will “decide”???  incredible!  yeah, like kris :(

irresponsible na nga, patronizing pa, looking down condescendingly on katrina from her cocky perch up there, wherever, in the dizzying heights of cyberspace obviously, giddy and gaga over her “popularity” and the support and adulation she’s been getting from her friends and cohorts (silence=support) in mainstream and social media?  yeah, she’s so back in the big-time now, we hear she even has links to, i mean, gets leaks from, the palace, no less.

check out benignO’s post World Bank report on Supreme Court ‘ineligible funds’ inappropriately leaked to Rappler? that i posted on my facebook wall, to which political analyst malu tiquia and journalist nini yarte, among others, reacted:

Malou Tiquia : what seems to have been ignored was that the WB project was implemented in 2003 under CJ DAVIDE, whose son was endorsed by PNOY during the 2010 elections. Unfortunately, the WB fund was audited during the Corona watch. The head of the Project Committee was even another Justice and not Corona.

Stuart Santiago : reading the inquirer version now, malou… hmm, kay corona ibinunton lahat, no? grabe.

Malou Tiquia : some in media created/abetted/supported the 2010 winner; media is ensuring they picked the right candidate unlike in 2001 when they allowed themselves to be used to oust Erap. If only media plays its role, then all of us will be served well. Now, if they would still blame Corona under command responsibility, the incumbent leader in the Executive Branch should be subjected to the same rigor too.

Nini Yarte : So it was a leaked story after all from a tainted source at that. No wonder rappler did not bother to get the reaction of people mentioned in the article. I was looking for the reply of JRSP to WB’s demand letter in the report, given the seriousness of the matter, there was none. So much for fair and objective journalism. If rappler’s advocacy is to bring down corona, it’s fine with me. But, mind, that’s not journalism.

Nini Yarte : … It’s a goldmine to us journalists, a scoop. But even when it’s a leaked story, the good practice, ethical, if you will, in journalism is to inform people that will be adversely affected by the story that such and such a report will be published and would they care to comment or give their side of the story. If they refuse to comment, that in itself is reported. The WB story is too one-sided for comfort. Now, if rappler wants to become like wikileaks, okay with me. But wikileaks does not brand itself as the bastion of good journalism. :)

trial by publicity, and rappler is part of it.  too bad.

like i’ve said on facebook, okay lang naman, kanya-kanyang diskarte.  but ressa should get down to earth, learn to respond rationally, and not cry bloody libel like a baby, when faced with criticism.  i know from experience that the blogosphere can be unforgiving of major lapses, lalo na pag ayaw umamin ng isang nagkamali o ayaw mag-sorry ng isang naka-offend.

i’ve been an independent and active political blogger for more than 3 years now, radikalchick for two.  we have built up our credibility slowly and patiently.  our comments sections are open to all (we only delete spam and trash), as are our twitter streams.  we are quick to apologize, to admit to mistakes, and to express thanks when a reader points out an error or gap in our reasoning.  we are also quick to thank anyone who offers new info/links/perspectives that raise the level of discourse.

we know to be careful, to self-edit, dahil nakataya ang pangalan namin.  we do not hide behind pseudonyms or orgs.  our blogs are us, up close and political.

a public apology would soothe radikalchick’s ruffled feathers some.  of course, we’re not waiting with bated breath.  given my own history with ressa, i don’t know that she’s up to it.  and then again, who knows.  she might see the light.  hope springs eternal.

mug shots

in the time of erap’s arrest in april 2001, it would seem that his mug shots were not meant to be released to media.  or so i gather from this bulatlat.com article i found while googling edsa tres for my next (and last, promise!) EDSA book:

Pres. Arroyo was flabbergasted when an “enterprising Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) official” sold a video of a humbled Estrada to the local and international media. Estrada was shown in police custody and grim-faced as his mug shots were taken. A noted TV commentator said that the sight was enough to move people to take the deposed president’s side. And, certainly, this was supposed to have given the “EDSA III” instigators the spark needed to start an uprising.

there was another link that named the PAOCTF official, but can’t find it now, kainis, so guess who na lang, public figure din.

what’s interesting now is that the gma camp is begging the authorities not to release her mug shots to the media.  i suppose they’ve given up on the paawa strategy, which is smart of them.  it would seem there is little sympathy from the masses anyway, i guess because they can’t relate to the notion of, because they could never afford, medical treatment abroad.

which is not to say there is no sympathy for gma.  there is, especially from her own class, but who are not wont to expose themselves unnecessarily.  more likely they’re just storming the heavens with prayers that the supreme court regain the upper hand in the unfolding constitutional thrilla in manila.

meanwhile, media must be on tenterhooks:  heed this tweet…

Marvic Leonen @ANCALERTS there is no public interest in the release of the mugshots except to degrade the accused. Her pictures should not be released.

…or be scooped by the competition.  abangan.

james soriano, wikang pambansa 101

tugon ito kay james soriano, who provoked with Language, learning, identity, privilege, and then responded to the brickbats in Wika bilang gunita.  a 4th year college student of ateneo, soriano has in essence come to realize the value of filipino/tagalog…

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning.

but he is only too glad that his mother language is english.  because english is the language of the classroom and the laboratory, the boardroom, the court room, the operating room, the language of privilege.

in brief, okay ang wikang pambansa pero hindi mo ikaaasenso.

totoo naman (maliban kung isa kang almario?).  but in his tagalog essay, soriano reveals a sophomoric take on why filipino/tagalog has not truly taken off as a national language.

Mapapansin sa mga bumabatikos sa akin ang sumusunod na argumento: dapat itaguyod ang wikang Filipino sapagkat isa kang Filipino. Dito, makikita nating nakatali ang ideya ng pagiging Filipino sa paggamit ng wikang Filipino. Kung gayon, ibig sabihin bang ang mga hindi marunong — o tahasang hindi gumagamit — ng wikang Filipino ay hindi na Filipino?

Ang punto ko rito ay dapat din natin pansinin na sa ibang rehiyon, ibang wika ang nangingibabaw. Ang wikang Filipino ay nakabase sa wikang Tagalog, na isa lamang sa napakaraming wikang basehan ng indibidwal na identidad.

Dahil dito, hindi ito tinatanggap ng lahat; may narinig na rin akong kuwento ng kaibigang nag-taxi, na hindi pinansin ng tsuper sapagkat kinausap niya si manong sa wikang Filipino.

indeed, filipinos who do not speak the pambansang wika are filipinos no less than those who do.  but it is seriously arguable that the wikang pambansa is not widely spoken except by native tagalogs.  soriano would have better served the cause of the national language by doing some research instead of making a sweeping generalization based on one friend said to have been ignored by a taxi driver because he spoke to the manong in filipino.

read Jessie Grace U. Rubrico’s The Metamorphosis of Filipino as National Language 1998

and from google books, read preview of  Bro. Andrew Gonzales FSC’s Cebuano and Tagalog:Ethnic Rivalry Redidivus 1991

read preview of Bro. Andrew’s From Pilipino to Filipino1, to Filipino 2: unmaking and remaking a National Language 1997

read preview of Caroline S. Hau’s and Victoria L. Tinio’s Language Policy and Ethnic Relations in the Philippines 2003

i can’t find more recent surveys of how widespread the use of filipino/tagalog is these days, but i have no doubt that it has increased over the last decade and is spoken more widely than ever in in the regional centers of the visayas and mindanao, thanks to print and radio, television and film.  as long ago as the 1990s, it was said, filipino/tagalog had become the predominant language in most media:

In recent years, mass media, particularly broadcasting, have shifted to Filipino. The two biggest networks in the Philippines hav almost entirely Filipino programming. National broadsheets are still predominantly in English, while national tabloids are mostly in Filipino. Community newspapers generally use the regional language in combination with English, except in Mindanao, where most are in English. The most popular comics and weekly magazines are in Filipino, although vernacular magazines are also widely read. Radio programming is usually bilingual, with Filipino becing more dominant except in some Cebuano- and Hiligaynon/Ilonggo-speaking areas and in metropolitan Manila, where English is preferred.

the problem is not that filipino is based on tagalog, the problem is cebuano opposition that seems to be concentrated lang naman daw among politicians who do not necessarily represent the majority view.  politicians who like fueling ethnic rivalries when it suits their purposes, who would even want us to start from scratch with cebuano as the basis for a wikang pambansa.  how helpful is that to the cause of a national language that would foster unity and understanding across all tribes.

nor is english per se the problem.  english is a historical and cultural given.  i am happy to speak (and write and read) in both english and filipino/tagalog, and i don’t feel split by the bilingualism. what splits up the country is the way the quality of both the english and the filipino/tagalog taught in schools has so deteriorated. good english has become exclusive to a privileged minority, while filipino/tagalog that is good and easy (on the eyes and ears) and inclusive not only of english but of bisaya and ilocano atbp. remains a distant dream.

in Our language predicament, writtten some 13 years ago in response to Bro. Andrew Gonzalez, then secretary of education, saying that some 20 percent of the high school population were deficient in the use of english, i said it seemed more like only 20 percent were still speaking good english, and i traced the downslide not just of english but of filipino/tagalog to the bilingual policy of education. Excerpts (slightly edited):

Time was when Filipinos were famous for being the only English-speaking people in Asia. From the American occupation until the ’60s, it didn’t matter if you were rich or poor. As long as you went to school (public or private), you learned to speak English, it being the official medium of instruction. I remember picking it up more quickly than most; I supposed it was because I got a lot of practice both in school and at home. In school it was all we were allowed to speak except in Sariling Wika class. At home it was the second language; I was always trying out my English on my mother who would always correct my mistakes, and my father was always asking me to read out loud the daily columns of Teodoro Valencia and Joe Guevara.

It was in the ’70s (if memory serves) when Marcos decreed a bilingual policy for education: English would still be taught and used in teaching math and the sciences but other subjects would be taught in the mutant Filipino, the Tagalog-based national language enriched with words from other dialects and languages that defy translation or require none because they’ve become part of the mainstream. At the time, it seemed like a victory for nationalists who had long been advocating such a policy in the interest of developing a truly national language that would allow full expression of the native psyche and intelligence and which would bind all Filipinos.

In the long run, however, the bilingual policy hasn’t worked. We failed to guard against problems we should have anticipated.

I submit that we took our English-speaking skills for granted. We didn’t realize what it took to speak good English and what it would take to sustain it in a bilingual environment. Perhaps we thought that we had our English too down pat to ever lose it. Maybe we thought it was so ingrained, it would get passed on through our genes. No such luck. Without sufficient practice in speaking, reading and writing, we’re losing it instead, and it’s beginning to show. Even on TV newscasts, the English is becoming sloppy, with newscasters breezing through wrong prepositions and mixing up idiomatic expressions.

Students are said to be doing better in classes conducted in Filipino than in English, but it could just be the natural advantage of a native language. It doesn’t mean that the bilingual policy has been good for the Filipino language. In fact, it has failed to evolve into a truly national language, what with the Cebuanos still fighting it and the authorities still insisting on what a writer friend calls ”laboratory Pilipino” na ang hirap namang basahin at intindihin, at napaka-pormal ng dating. It is so stilted, so different from the lingua franca, or the Filipino spoken at home, in the streets, and in media, that it confounds and bewilders rather than grabs, excites or inspires.

I can understand the reigning authorities’ desire to preserve the old forms and expressions, but it will have to wait until we get the hang of Tagalog again. Most of us Tagalogs who became fluent in English lost a lot of our Tagalog along the way. In the early ’80s, when I started writing in and translating into Tagalog, my vocabulary was terrible. A script that was a breeze to do in English was always a struggle to do in Tagalog, lalo na in laboratory Pilipino.

Even with help from dictionaries, I found that to render many English ideas or concepts in a Tagalog that is easy to read and comprehend, I needed to do more than translate. The writer-translator has to rethink the sentence structure, rethink the idea in terms of Filipino experience, and express it using a vocabulary that gets the message across in one reading. And I found that there’s no dropping English altogether because in many instances the English words (and English spellings) are already more widely used and understood than the Tagalog. In the end, I settled into a kind of Filipino that is more Tagalog than English but more Taglish than purist.

fast forward to 2011.  laboratory filipino-ists continue to insist on re-spelling english words the tagalog way.  keyk for cake, tsok for chalk, salbeyds for salvage, notbuk for notebook…  i don’t get it.  it doesn’t help make the reading easy, as in, nakakatisod: ano daw?  worse, ang sakit sa mata.  salbeyds.  saan ka nakakita ng ganyang kombinasyon ng letra – walang kataga na beyds ke sa english ke sa tagalog o cebuano o ilokano atbp., so how does that help?

even worse, walang nakikialam sa filipino/tagalog na gamit ng media.  here’s some of lem garcellano’s rant on facebook a year ago:

Leche-flan *@#%$. Nakaka PKon! mula news readers reporters ng GMA at ABS-CBN hanggang kay PNoy: RESOLBA RESOLBA RESPONDE RESPONDE! Mga ungas, may salita naman sa tagalog LUTAS LUTAS O LUNAS, DUMALO o PAGDALO! Nagtagalog nga, tinagalog naman ang ingles! … pati mga makabayang orgs gamit din resolba! resolbahin! ano ba!

Eto pa, “yapak” daw ang sinabi ukol sa ingles na “steps” pero ang pagkakabigkas ang ibig sabihin sa ingles “unshod”. Bwiiiiiseeeeeet! Nagtagalog nga mali naman! Kaya yung mga nanood lalo na ang mga bata akala iyon na nga ang kataga para sa kahulugan sa gawang iyon! Panginoon! Sa Visayas, ganundin ang sinasabi nila, responde. Sagipin mo kami sa mga mamamatay-wika! Yan bang mga GMA at AS-CBN, sa laki ng kinikita nila, e, wala silang taong magsasala ng ng mga salita sa kanilang ulat?

Sana may batas na nagpapataw ng kamatayan sa lahat ng pumapatay sa wikang Pilipino.

Sabagay, nang mapakinggan ko si Pnoy kagabi, magaling siyang magsalita sa Tagalog. Pag tagalog, tagalog siya talaga. Pag Ingles, ingles… lamang, natisod sa resolba at responde. Sinundan kasi ang sinabi ni Mel Tiangco at Ted.

eto pa: eksperiyensiya for experience, when there’s karanasan.  competenisya for competition, di ba kompetisyon?  and speaking of ted failon, isa lang siya sa maraming newsreader na mali ang bigkas sa “taya” (ng panahon), malumay, eh tulad lang naman iyan ng taya sa sugal, maragsa.

at tama rin, sa pananaw ko, si lem na tagalog ang dapat itawag sa wikang pambansa.  huwag na tayong magpanggap.

Ano kayang pagkakaiba ng “Filipino” sa Tagalog? Ano kaya yung “superiority” na iyon? Pag pinagsalita mo naman ng “Filipino”, ang salita naman ay Tagalog! Kung ibig talaga natin na magkaroon ng pambansang wika na ang tawag ay “Filipino” at hindi Tagalog e di ituro sa mga Pilipino sa pagkabata pa lang ang tatlong pinakamalawak na wika sa bansa: Tagalog, Ilukano at Bisaya. Tiyak, sa loob ng dalawang daang taon, may isang wika na ang Pilipinas-pinaghalong wika ng mga Pilipino. Pero kung ibig nating malutas (maresolba sa “Filipino”?) ang usapin sa wika, tigilan na yan pagtawag sa wika na Pilipino, lunukin na lang ang yabang ng mga Pilipino at tawagin itong Tagalog.

imagine if we were truly united by a national language.  then we would all be in a better position to fight for deepseated change.  recently i posted in facebook a letter to the inquirer editor, Helicopter probe deal flying nowhere about president aquino

…reducing the country’s problems to a single cause—the previous administration’s corruption. But he really shares the same policies with Gloria, committing the economy to unbridled privatization, deregulation and liberalization that serve elite interests.

which led to this exchange with steve salonga:

Steve:  the author should realize that those elitist economic policies were set in place over a 100 years, and that it will take a deliberate act of a majority of citizens to begin the process of redirecting them. It begins with a President but it finishes much later when the people have acted accordingly by continuing to elect representatives who are against such exclusionary economic policies.

me:  true, steve. this is where a national language and a crusading media are indispensable

Steve:  tagalog would be the more “inclusive” language and should be used for maintaining a national dialogue on issues. You wonder how the government and business elite would fare under such conditions!

the bottom line is, we can have both english and tagalog but only if we work at it.  schools should bring back drills, big time, and everyone should be encouraged to practice by reading aloud, with or without an audience.  media, especially television, should help out by making space and time for language progams that will teach children and adults good tagalog and good english.  and it would help greatly if the language minorities would bow to tagalog and give the nation a break, for the common good and for democracy’s sake.