CHAPTER INTRODUCTION In November, 1911, a grand birthday party was held in Caloocan, a suburb of Manila for the celebrant, Ninyang Lanuza. The affair was tagged by Ang Mithi, a Tagalog daily newspaper, as an Aklatang Bayan event, Aklatang Bayan being one of several local-language organizations of the time. The members of Aklatang Bayan were the most prominent Tagalog poets, playwright, novelists, linguists, and grammarians. The Ang Mithi reporter described, in a rather humorous manner, the many features and events of the evening including tennis and a bath before dinner, a waltz, a two-step, and a rigodon, copious amounts of food, stylish barong tagalogs worn by the men, poems read, speeches given and songs sung. Dinnertime was described as “ang oras ng pagbibigay sa makapangyarihang tiyan” (the hour of giving in to the powerful stomach) and one of the guests as a Caruso whose singing startled some of the other guests because his singing sounded like “kulog na sa laot” (thunder on the lake). In March of the same year, both the weekly Renacimiento Filipino and the daily Taliba, reported on a party held at the home of Agapito Zialcita in Kalye Moriones in Tondo. It was a party that was attended by, according to Renacimiento Filipino, “ang lalong mga bantog na manunula sa wika ni Lakandula”2 (the more renouned writers of the language of Lakandula3). These included Isabelo de los Reyes, Rosauro Almario, Lope K. Santos, Patricio Mariano, Inigo Ed. Regalado, and many others. The celebration was centered on a game called “juegos florales” where each poet was to recite an original poem about a particular virtue (diligence, beauty, goodness, etc.) after which the poet was to crown a lady in the party the queen of that virtue. In between the presentation of the poems, musical numbers were performed by the guests: pieces were played on the piano and the violin and songs by Verdi and from the opera Pagliacci were “Ang ‘Aklatang Bayan’ sa Kalookan,” Ang Mithi, November 1911, 10. “Maringal na Pagdiriwang sa Tulang Tagalog,” Renacimiento Filipino, March 1911, 24. Lakandula was the muslim Rajah who ruled over Manila, and particularly over the Tondo area when the Spanish arrived. He was defeated by the Spanish in 1570. sung. The evening was not without a neglect of civil duties as Isabelo de los Reyes announced he would take up a collection for the victims of eruption of Taal Volcano. Though it may seem strange to us today that the social activities, indeed any activities of poets, writers, and of language organizations and its members would be of great interest to the general public, it was not so in the Philippines of the early part of the 20th century. The popularity of such local-language organizations is well-documented4 and the popularity of its members is well-known. The poets, in particular, were supposed to be the equal of contemporary rock stars and today’s hankering for days gone, the national nostalgia, if you will, includes the legendary stories of throngs of people attending traditional poetic jousts the way people today would flock to a rock concert. We begin this thesis with this small vignette about the success and popularity of Tagalog and the Tagalog writers because, strangely enough, this is where this thesis ends—with the victory of Tagalog. This thesis attempts to tell the story of this victory. It is a victory that has to be vigorously emphasized because its story has generally been neglected. Given the aggressive campaigns launched both against Tagalog and other local languages and in Tagalog’s behalf, the story is one of a real triumph of the soul and being of a people. In as much as these light-hearted articles reflect the actual popularity of local-language organizations of the time, they also reveal the systematic and determined campaign to keep Tagalog alive and to claim for it a formal and significant place in the life of the nation. This campaign, of which this thesis is principally about, did not isolate language from other social and political issues—language was tied to issues such as labor rights and agrarian reform and was inextricable from the issue of independence from American occupation and American imperialism. These accounts may seem much like an account found in any current newspaper that describes a social event in its social event section. Yet the very casual and banal tone of the articles reflect the matter-of-factness in which the consciousness of language as a cause to be See Virgilio Almario, Balagtasismo Versus Modernismo: Panulang Tagalog sa Ika-20 Siglo, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1984), 52-55. defended permeated prosaic, everyday events like birthday parties and christenings. Implicit, however, in the reporting of these ordinary events, was the understanding that its participants were participants as well in the colossal task of creating the nation. By the very choice of the organization’s name, “Aklatang Bayan” (translated literally as “national library” but probably more accurately as “Books of the Nation”), one gleans an awareness of the role of its members in not merely representing but also creating the nation. The consciousness of the politics of language was present in small, personal events as much as it was in the great nation-building moments. Seen in terms of today’s language organizations that meet formally for conferences or for policy formation, these social events seem quite strange and anachronistic. The same casual and banal tone of the articles also belie the fierce struggle over language during this time and the rigid and relentless campaign by the American colonial enterprise to depict local languages as primitive and unsuitable for use in a modern nation. This American campaign was, of course, the more benign aspect of the campaign that was violent and bloody— the military occupation of the Philippines and the control of Philippine political and economic life. In turn, it also belies the equally fierce resistance launched by such local-language organizations. Such a resistance was not limited to essays on the merits and beauty of Filipino languages and culture but was found in the labor picket line and even in the agrarian uprisings. Prominent and active members of Aklatang Bayan included Lope K. Santos, an active officer of the labor group Union Obrero Democratica de Filipinas, Faustino Aguilar who wrote scathing anti-American novels and poems, Amado V. Hernandez, a journalist, labor leader and, later in World War II, a resistance leader, and Benigno Ramos who would eventually found the Sakdalistas, a peasant organization that would, in the 1930s launch an insurrection against the Philippine government. Santos, Aguilar, Hernandez, and Ramos were writers—poets and novelists—who, like Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio, were part of the tradition of the nationalist writer/activist. It is a tradition that hints at how, for these discourse-makers, the questions of language are inseparable from the questions of the modes of production, questions of independence and questions of the nation. The campaign to establish English as the common language in the Philippines included, among others, such tactics as creating a discourse about the inadequacy and primitiveness of Philippine languages. Numerous American officials, linguists, scholars and even Philippine “experts” had declared the non-existence of a common local language and the insufficiency of any of the Philippine languages for use for modern life. One of the first education directors, Fred Atkinson declared that “never was there a common dialect, nor to mention a language; nothing of importance in the way of native literature existed; and there was such a confused number of different tribes, each with its own tongue, that ethnologists themselves have not yet worked out their solution.”5 James Le Roy reprises this sentiment with: “There is, in short, no literature, worthy of being described by that term, in any of the Philippine dialects.”6 Charles Burke Elliott, an American colonial official, argues that Tagalog is inferior as it “had shown no capacity for growth. . . and had no vitality and little literature worthy of the name.”7 Never had Filipinos had to face such attacks on their language before and such an onslaught against Tagalog and other local languages precipitated numerous campaigns not just to defend, lobby for and promote the language but to develop, systematize, revitalize it as well. Hence, the beginning of the clash between two conflicting forces that played out not just in the battlefield and in legislative halls, although they were definitely played out there as well, but in everyday activities and places like birthday parties, and christenings. The Miseducation of the Filipino One of the most lasting legacies of American colonialism upon the Filipinos is the enduring idea that anything American—policies, ideas, products, the people themselves—would be great and good. Among Filipinos, there was an awareness of the bankruptcy of this idea and of Fred W. Atkinson, The Philippine Islands, (Boston and New York: Ginn and Company, 1905), 403. James A. Le Roy, Philippine Life in Town and Country, (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), 217. Elliott, The Philippines to the End of the Commission Government, (New York: Greenwood Press, 1917), 227. how the idea was generated in the first place. Surely, the awareness must have been there even when the Americans were still colonizers but many open articulations of it were made after Philippine independence. In the 1950s, one of the public intellectuals most openly critical of this American legacy was Claro M. Recto. In one of his most famous addresses, he connects Filipino economic dependence on America, what he calls the “mendicant foreign policy,” to the Filipino perception that America will always look after the Philippines, because the Philippines is a “favored child” of America. Filipinos, Recto declared, have the erroneous belief that America is “driven by some strange predilection for our people” and that she would “never forsake us nor sacrifice our interests to her own.”8 Nationalist historian, Teodoro Agoncillo, credits the public education system established by the Americans with accomplishing one of the great turn-arounds in Philippine history: that the strong anti-American sentiment created by the devastation and suffering of the Philippine-American war was “completely eradicated from the Filipino mind and Filipinos immediately regarded the Americans as their guides and benefactors.”9 Writer S.P. Lopez, most famous in literary history for Villa-Lopez debates of the 1940s,10 was cognizant of the objectives of American education, despite all the American proclamations of their benevolence. Lopez called Amercian intentions in the education project “none-too-subtle” and criticized the attempt to create “little brown Americans of Asia” who would be “avid consumers of American ideas and ideals” and consumers as well of “American goods and services.”11 Lopez affirmed that the English education introduced by the Americans in the Philippines did create a competent class of writers who use English as a instrument to express Filipino creativity. Lopez Claro M. Recto, “Our Mendicant Foreign Policy,” in Filipino Nationalism, 1872-1970, ed. Teodoro A. Agoncillo, 334, (Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing Co., 1974). Teodoro A. Agoncillo and Milagros C. Guerrero, The History of the Filipino People, fifth edition, (Quezon City: R.P. Garcia Publishing, 1977), 338. 10 The Villa-Lopez debates consisted of a series of articles published between 1939-40 between Lopez and poet Jose Garcia-Villa regarding the proper objective of literature. Villa took the “art for art’s sake” position while Lopez argued great literature reflected social realities. The debate was so controversial that Filipino writers of the time had to openly declare which camp they belong to and had to hue their writing style accordingly. Vestiges of this debate exist till today and contemporary writers still see the two persuasions in Philippine writing as existing in a rivalry. Lopez’s statements here, critical of this American legacy, are indeed a great contrast to Villa’s own attitude toward American education. Villa saw his poetic vision as part of the great Anglo-American tradition. 11 Salvador P. Lopez, “The Colonial Relationship” in Philippine-American Relations, ed. Frank H. Golay, 25, (Manila: Solidaridad Publishing House. 1966). evaluates this, however, as a “limited achievement” that was accomplished at the expense of “the maleducation of the many.”12 This consensus among the thinkers critical of the American educational legacy would be marshalled into a powerful and highly influential essay by Renato Constantino, “The Miseducation of the Filipino.” “Miseducation” was radical in that it was the first thorough examination and indictment of the American education project in the Philippines. Constantino detailed how education, through the production of myths and through the institution of English, created a “colonial mentality.” What was most remarkable about “Miseducation,” however was its emphasis on erasure and on how Filipino education had actually been a “miseducation” that had veiled the truth rather than uncovered it. His analysis struck a chord among the young radical students of the 1960s during the burgeoning anti-Marcos movement and his works, but particularly this essay, became a beacon and a “must-read” for understanding a hidden history of continuing iniquitous foreign relations and its relation to a current chaotic and highly unjust national social and economic situation. “Miseducation” has three key enduring arguments. The first is that education during the American period was used both as a means of pacifying a people who were clamoring for independence and as a tool for expanding and preserving American control. The second is that English became an apparatus that emphasized the difference in social classes among Filipinos as well as the device that distracted Filipinos from their nationalist aspirations by making them forget their past. The third is that the kind of education imposed on the Filipinos emphasized the idea that the Philippine culture and economy was essentially pastoral which consequently helped to underscore the idea of the superiority of the West. Perhaps the most influential and memorable idea put forth in “Miseducation” was the idea that language, in this case English, could be constitutive of reality. In the following lines, probably the most quoted from the essay, Constantino describes how language becomes, not just a medium of communication but a medium of creating a new kind of people: The first and perhaps master stroke in the plan to use education as an instrument 12 Ibid. of colonial policy was the decision to use English as the medium of instruction. English became the wedge that separated the Filipinos from their past and later was to separate educated Filipinos from the masses of their countrymen. English introduced the Filipinos to a strange, new world. With American textbooks, Filipinos started learning not only a new language but also a new way of life, alien to their traditions and yet a caricature of their model. This was the beginning of their miseducation, for they learned no longer as Filipinos but as colonials. They had to be disoriented from their nationalist goals because they had to become good colonials.13 Constantino’s vision, one that centers on erasure and cultural imperialism, has served as a model and inspiration for a critical analysis focused on investigation of the tools of empire and the instrument of colonialism. So influential is “Miseducation” that after forty years scholars would be either herald it as one of the most influential essays of our time or rail against its dogma.14 In as much as this thesis exists in the shadow of Constantino and “Miseducation,” and its understanding of the language politics of the American period as principally an acquiescing to the English policy, it also struggles to find a away out of the discourse of “Miseducation” and its emphasis on how Filipinos were misled and deceived. “Miseducation” is silent on how Filipinos responded to the imposition of English, in fact, the suggestion is that the response was simple submission. In truth, the local response, and in particular, the Tagolog response to the imposition of English was strong, vibrant, militant, and creative. It came in the form of organized and individual efforts to study and systematize Tagalog, to revive and even glorify it, and to lobby for its use as medium of instruction and as official language. The abundance, almost profuseness of the evidence for these campaigns came as a surprise to me and to many Filipino scholars and historians whom I showed the evidence to. This astonishment, I believe, is evidence of the power of Constantino’s vision, which, while focusing 13 Renato Constantino, The Miseducation of the Filipinio, (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1987), 6. Originally published in the Weekly Graphic on June 8, 1966. 14 See for example “La Escuela de Diablo, Iskul ng Tao, Revisiting Colonial Public Education” in Beareres of Benevolence: The Thomasites in Public Education in the Philippines, (Pasig City: Anvil, 2001). In this essay, Ick attempts to reevaluate the work of the American teachers who had come to the Philippines in 1901 to start up the public school system in the Philippines. Ick blames “the dogma of our ‘miseducation’ by American colonialism” which taught Filipinos that “American education was the evil that led to our ‘colonial mentality’ which is, in turn, the root of all our society’s failures” for a kind of automatically negative view of the American colonial project and of such teachers. on investigating American claims of benevolence and exposing actual American interests, inadvertently underscores the idea of blind acquiescence. Without contesting the veracity of Constantino’s discourse and without denying the importance of continually studying and exposing methods of cultural imperialism in both the past and the present, and indeed, while still paying homage to the relevance of such a discourse, this study attempts to examine that other half of the equation; the force that defended Philippine, and in particular, Tagalog language and culture and in the end had a decisive influence in creating a space for local languages in the life of the nation. Language and the Nation This study is an attempt to understand the meanings and values assigned to the languages of Philippine life, principally Tagalog and English but also Spanish and the other local languages, during the first forty years of the American colonial occupation. It attempts to understand how these meanings and values clashed but also merged into the official positions that hold to this day: English as an official language and a language based on Tagalog, now called Filipino, as the national language. This study is an attempt to understand the complex role of language in imposing and resisting imperialism, in imbibing or rejecting modernity, and in embodying the nation. It aims to identify the relation between language and not just nation-building but nation-demolition, nationreconstruction, and nation-invention. Concretely, this thesis is about: - the discourse created by American colonial officials about English in their numerous histories, ethnographies, linguistic studies, personal accounts, and government reports, in order to justify its central place in Philippine society; - the ardent and concerted counter-discourse during the first few years of American occupation that was launched by a number of Tagalog (language) societies that fervently promoted the local language and insisted on the connection between language and identity. The discussion of this counter-discourse will be based principally on a series of Tagalog essays on the Tagalog language published in the daily Muling Pagsilang between 1903 and 1906. This period (from 1898 to 1906) has been identified by Maximo Kalaw as the period of suppressed nationalism when American efforts at containing expressions of Philippine nationalism were most stringent and vigilant.15 This discussion is of particular importance because this counter-discourse has, rather bizarrely, been virtually erased from the many historical accounts of language that have been written over the last fifty years; - the Tagalog campaign carried out in English beginning 1916 as it appeared in letters, speeches, diaries, textbooks, news accounts, published debates, linguistic studies, official government acts and official statements. The major figures in this section are such figures as Jorge Bocobo and Camilo Osias, Trinidad Pardo de Tavera, Cecilio Lopez and a host of others who wrote in English in defense of Tagalog and/or the other Philippine languages. The focus here, is in illustrating how, although these writers were of a similar position to that of the Muling Pagsilang writers who had written more than a decade before, their objectives, tact, and personal relation to Tagalog were vastly different. The suggestion here is that there is a kind of meeting of form and content in these essays and that English or Tagalog in these essays carry within them an apparent perspective on identity and nationhood; in a much smaller capacity, the discourse about English and the local languages in the Southeast Asian colonies that were also colonized by English at the turn of the century—Burma and Malaya. The discussions here of language and colonialism in Burma and Malaya are not extensive but they are used to put into context the ways in which questions and problems of the relation between language, education, colonialism, and anti-colonial protest in the Philippines have been framed by both colonial officials and contemporary historians. Whereas, the motif of “difference” has been used to depict the Philippine case as unique, the discussion here explores the magnitude of this 15 Maximo M. Kalaw, The Development of Philippine Politics (1872-1920), (Manila: Oriental Commercial Co., Inc., 1926), 294. difference and its bearing on the colonial project and post-colonial knowledge production. Essentially, this study does two things. First, it reconstructs the Tagalog language campaign (with a specific emphasis on the campaign carried out in Tagalog itself as this has all but been neglected by the scholarship on this topic) which developed dramatically from a seeming death sentence rendered by the American policy of mass, public education in English to a vibrant force that plays an essential role in the life of the nation. Second, it describes the specific role played by English and Tagalog (and in passing also by Spanish and the other local languages) in nation-building during the American period. Through these two principal projects, this study is also an inquiry into the way in which language history has been presented in the past; an examination of the nature of the American imperialist and Philippine anti-imperialist projects; and an exploration of the Tagalog ideas regarding the relationship between language, history, heritage, and nation. “Its Historic Agents Know Not What They Do” To understand these language campaigns and their relation to and impact on nationbuilding during the American period, it might be helpful to situate these campaigns within the debate between the discourse of nations and nationalism as, on the one hand, a modern creation and, on the other, of discourses that challenge it and offer alternatives. The idea of “the nation” as a modern phenomenon is based on the idea that nationalism and the idea of “the nation” are new and appeared only fairly recently as a kind of cultural logic necessary for the functioning and legitimacy of the equally new historical stage of industrialization. The nation and nationalism are thus invented or imagined but invented and imagined in such a powerful and simultaneous way as to make them appear normative. This idea of the nation as a self-evident idea is essential because the idea of the nation and nationalism is actually a method of socializing the units of the state into loyal citizens of a cohesive nation who will, in turn, through their loyalty, legitimize the state. The theories about the ways through which this seemingly normative idea is diffused are varied, though similar. For Ernest Gellner it is 10 interest in the Philippine vernaculars.”35 Agoncillo’s strong language is the twin to his commitment to writing a history that includes marginalized voices. This commitment has saved these early movements from erasure from the language history of the Philippines. The present study takes off from the minimal but essential clues left by Agoncillo. Similarly, Mga Gramatikang Tagalog/Pilipino (1893-1977) by Lydia Gonzales Garcia, briefly discusses the Tagalog organizations of the first decade of the 20th century. Garcia’s approach, like Agoncillo’s, focuses on the idea of rejection. She says for example: “At kung marami mang Amerikanong tumutol sa patakaran ng pamahalaan ng Amerikano tungkol sa wika sa Pilipinas, lalong marami ang mga Pilipinong tumutol at kumilos laban sa patakarang ito.”36 (If there were many Americans who were against the American colonial language policy, there were even more Filipinos who objected and campaigned against this policy.) Barbara S. Gaerlan’s study “The Politics and Pedagogy of Language Use in the University of the Philippines: The History of English as a Medium of Instruction and the Challenge Mounted by Filipino” (dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998) situates the struggle for language in the University of the Philippines within the larger context of the struggle within the nation. Her third chapter, “The Consolidation of English and the Introduction of the National Language Debate,” is of particular use to this study in that it provides a comprehensive account of the language debates within the University of the Philippines during the 1920s and it proposes the idea that English, during this period, became a medium of nationalist expression. The studies of Agoncillo, Garcia and Gaerlan focus on nationalist expressions articulated in different languages. The studies of Agoncillo and Garcia list of the mention the names of a few Tagalog writers who openly advocated against the English policy. However, they not describe for us how these writers thought about language and its place in history and in nation building. Gaerlan gives form to the nationalist language campaign but her focus is the campaign that was carried out in English. The principal significance of this study, therefore, is in it’s study 35 Lydia Gonzales Garcia, Mga Gramatikang Tagalog/Pilipino (1893-1977), (Quezon City: Sentro ng Wikang Filipino, 1992), 24. 36 Ibid, 77. 21 of these neglected but vitally significant essays about languages written in Tagalog very early on during the American occupation. On the issue of language and colonialism, there exists quite a large a body of work37 a good number of which are focused on English education as a tool for colonial control. Two recent studies, “The Study of English and the Problem of Consciousness in English” (dissertation, National University of Singapore, 2001) by T. Ruanni Tupas and “Istratehiyang Idelohikal ng Kolonyalsimong Amerikano sa Pilipinas: Pagsusuri ng Kanong Pampanitikan sa Paaralan, 19011941” (dissertation, University of the Philippines, 1999) by Maria Isabel Pefianco-Martin see English and English teaching as functioning as agents of either myth–making or amnesia about the colonial condition. This study is, likewise, concerned with understanding colonial strategies but in particular with myth-making about languages. This study is also concerned with presenting a picture of colonial strategies not as fixed but as one that is constantly responding to a constantly changing terrain. This study is significant also in its depiction, a relatively uncommon one, of the language politics not as a symptom of brutal and uncreative dominance nor passive acceptance but rather as an organic process that constantly had to be reinvented, defended, and modified. It is this stance that allows for a perspective that accommodates the competing perspectives of the origins of nationalism—a modern viewpoint that sees nationalism as the imposition of a common idiom and culture and the challenge to this viewpoint that identifies the enduring symbols and meanings from which people forge their own meanings of nation and nationalism. These perspectives, one that sees language in very practical, utilitarian terms (language aids in creating a nation) and the other as constituting identity (language as an element upon which a nation is built) found themselves in opposition to each other with the arrival of the 37 Mention should also be made of the following dissertations about American colonial education, the majority of which focus on the American school teachers who helped establish the Philippine public school system. These studies were not of direct use to the present study but, in terms of sources, provided a good number of leads. They are: “Pioneer American Teachers and Philippine Education” by Amparo S. Lardizabal (dissertation, Stanford University, 1956), “American Education in the Creation of an Independent Philippines: The Commonwealth Period, 1935-1941” by Donald Edward Douglas (dissertation, University of Michigan, 1979), “American Education in the Philippines, the Early Years: American Pioneer Teachers and the Filipino Responses, 1900-1935” by Mary Bonzo Suzuki (dissertation, Univeristy of California, Berkley, 1991), and “The Education of the Thomasites: American School Teachers in Philippine Colonial Society, 1901-1913” by Peter James Tarr (dissertation, Cornell University, 2006). 22 Americans and their pervasive language policy. The Filipinos, through their struggle with Spain for independence, had become very familiar with the struggle for language and with the idea of language constituting identity. Rizal had immortalized this important Philippine issue in his novel El Filibisterismo when its main character, Simoun, rejected Spanish. Spanish will never be the national language because the people will never speak it. The tongue cannot express their ideas and their emotions. Each people has its own way of speaking just as it has its own way of feeling. What will you with Spanish, the few of you who will get to speak it? You will only kill your individual personality and subjects your thoughts to other minds. Instead of making yourself free, you will only make yourselves truly slaves.38 This surprising snippet articulated in 1891, summarizes major points against the imposition of a foreign language, major points that will be brought up during the American period (as they continue to brought up now). The discussion about language and identity was a key issue during the propaganda movement and was forefront in the minds of the movement’s key players. 39 Thus, Filipinos had become fairly familiar with the issues surrounding language, colonization, nation, and identity when the Americans arrived with their own ideas about English in the Philippines. Language and Nation Building The process of cementing English into Philippine society follows a somewhat ironic pattern. The occupation of the Philippines was initially coercive as was the implementation of English. Following the much-publicized declaration of “benevolent assimilation,” America lived up to its role as an “enlightened” colonialist by relinquishing more and more of its political power (a Philippine Assembly in 1907, the Jones law which, in 1916, assured future independence). What did it retain? Language. The Jones Law, which set the terms for a gradual independence, provided for complete Filipinization of the bureaucracy, except for the position of secretary of education. The Hare-Hawes-Cutting bill (an independence bill turned down by the Filipinos 38 Jose Rizal, El Filibusterismo, translated by Leon Ma. Guerrero, 42, (Manila: Guerrero Publishing Inc., 2006). 39 See for example a letter of Marcelo H. del Pilar dated March 25, 1889 where he writes “the dilemma of whether to adopt Spanish or Tagalog has many defenders on each side.” Marcelo H. del Pilar, The Letters of Marcelo H. del Pilar, translated by Maria Luisa Garcia, (Manila: National Historical Institute, 2006), 66. 23 because of, according to some accounts, the maneuverings of Quezon to secure his position as the first president) and the Tydings-MacDuffie Act which finally granted Philippine independence, both had the provision that public instruction in English was to be inscribed in the constitution. The initial vigilant and obsessively anxious movement by American colonial officials toward securing the place of English in Philippine society gives way to an eventual sense of security and ease with the idea of a national language based on a local language. This transformation parallels the move toward relinquishing political power. The struggle, as Gramsci predicts, moves from one that relies on political-society to enforce its policies to one that relies on civil-society to police itself. Once the colonial government had created a generation of Englisheducated bureaucrats who had assimilated as common sense American capitalist ideals—the open-market and American-style modernization, democratization, and development—granting independence was easy. What had to be assured was the perpetuation of this “common sense.” This was to be assured through English-language education. This is not to say that language and language alone was their object. Indeed, the relative ease (within a span of just thirty-five years) with which America conceded independence belies a long struggle to ensure the security of its military and commercial interests. Their object was in fact control of the economic, political and cultural structures and one of the most significant ways in which this control was to be achieved was through education in English. In the mean time, the struggle for self-determination was most valiantly fought. Of the revolutionary armed struggle, many have already written; but of linguistic self-determination during this coercive period, little is known. The Tagalog language movements of this period were concerned with both the very survival of the language and with escorting it into the modernized 20th Century. The essays generated by these movements are important because they carried on the campaign, started among some quarters of the revolution, to cement the idea of nation and (Tagalog) language as inextricable from each other. This was done at a time when most were silent about the matter. 24 These early Tagalog essays on Tagalog were not generated by people normally considered part of the “below”—the masses and the peasants. Neither were they members of the ilustrado or elite class. A good number of them had solid educational grounding, though many were of working-class backgrounds, many with revolutionary experience. Thus, the authors and the essays occupy a kind of netherworld. The venue through which these essays appeared (a Tagalog daily, Muling Pagsilang which had a Spanish counterpart, El Renacimiento) were considered “militant and anti-American” and called “a hero among Philippine newspapers.”40 As El Renacimiento and Muling Pagsilang carried stories that were openly critical of the American colonial government, the American community perceived them as existing in order to incite rebellion and insurrection.41 However, it has also been argued that El Renacimiento was in fact hardly radical or extreme and was “somewhat more moderate and distinctly more [akin to the] ilustrado style of political propaganda.42 It may be helpful, however, to view El Renacimiento and particularly Muling Pagsilang which was written in Tagalog and these essays on language that appeared in it as neither openly seditious and incendiary nor simply of the kind that has come to signify illustrado politics— concerned with the peaceful and legal political negotiations and maneuverings with the Americans. Such a position, which according to Ileto characterizes Philippine politics prior to the passage of the Jones law in 191643, was one that people from all points of the political and economic spectrum (both the ilustrado politician Quezon and the militant labor leader Hermenigildo Cruz are used as examples) found themselves in. Such a position straddled both the world of the legal struggle for independence and the still very powerful world of the possibility of independence through armed struggle. The discourse of revolution, armed struggle, impending independence, the revival of the Katipunan, the possible return of the liberator General 40 Jesus Z. Valenzuela, History of Journalism in the Philippine Islands, Manila: Jesus Z. Valenzuela, 1933, 126-127. 41 Arthur Stanley Riggs, The Filipino Drama, 1905, (Manila: Ministry of Human Settlements, Intramuros Administration, 1905), 42-43. 42 Michael Cullinane, Ilustrado Politics: Filipino Elite Responses to American Rule, 1898-1908, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2003), 124. 43 Reynaldo C. Ileto, “Orators and the Crowd: Independence Politics, 1910-1914” in Filipinos and their Revolution, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998). 25 Artemio Ricarte (exiled in Hong Kong) could, during this time, Ileto tells us, touch a raw nerve among the unschooled masses and, in all likelihood, move them to action. Some of these essays on language function within the discourse created about language by the Americans (common language, democracy, efficiency) but also function through concepts outside of this realm. As such, their function in this story is one of being an intermediary between an earlier and possibly “lower” tradition of understanding language, and particularly Tagalog, and its connection to nationhood, independence and the revolution and the later more “legitimate” movements carried out in English. The later (starting around the 1920s) much-documented campaign carried out in English against English and for a national language apparently builds on and draws from the sentiments and ideas of these early Tagalog essays and yet is of a completely different discourse. English and the Continuing Past What propels this project is an anxiety over the way English, in current Philippine society, is conceived of as the key to our economic survival. This prescription for economic survival follows closely an IMF-World Bank development strategy that stipulates liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. It is a prescription that assures great returns on investments to foreign investors and their local counterparts but keeps millions of Filipinos underpaid. This development strategy is based on the idea of turning the Philippines into a great labor market. English education is promoted to assure our competitive edge in this labor market (against the likes of China, Vietnam, and Cambodia). It is also promoted for giving the millions of overseas Filipino workers (the majority of whom work in the lowest-paying jobs) a competitive edge and to assure labor for the burgeoning call-center industry which hinges on English-proficiency. The history that English has of insidiously and quietly inserting itself into Philippine society continues today. The strategy it employed of asserting the neutrality of English is rehearsed over and over again in the current linguistic discourse. Then, as now, the neutrality of English was assumed by scholars and politicians alike. 26 Most linguists44 are in agreement about and in awe of the rise of English in the twentieth century. A number of figures from the Economist Intelligence Unit45 illustrates why the linguists are agog. - 310 million people use English as their first language - English is the official or joint official language in over 70 countries and it is the most employed official language - The number of people who use English as a second language is estimated at 300 million A few other facts and figures46 confirm the importance of English: - In the fields of science, education, medicine, international politics, journalism, commerce and trade, there are more publications in English than in any other language. - Two-thirds of the world’s scientists read in English - English is the main language of international media; more books, newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs are produced in English than in any single language - Three-fourths of the world’s mail is written in English - Ninety percent of internet communication takes place in English - English is the official language employed in international air traffic and international shipping - English is the most commonly used language at international conferences. The response of linguists and writers to this big-brother presence of English throughout the world has been polemical. While some scholars decry this state and connect it to a conspiracy to move toward a world with a uniform culture, others celebrate not the triumph of western culture but the triumph of the appropriation and adaptation of English by individual cultures. 44 See for example: Charles Ferguson, Foreword to The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, second edition, ed. Braj B. Kachru, ix, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) and Richard W. Bailey and Manfred Gorlach, “Introduction,” English as a World Language, ed. Richard W. Bailey and Manfred Gorlach, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1982). 45 Brian McCallen, English: A World Commodity, (London: The Economist Intelligence Unit, 1989). 46 Reported by James Alatis and Carolyn A. Straehle, “The Universe of English: Imperialism, Chauvinism, and Paranoia” in World Englishes 2000, ed. Larry E. Smith and Michael L. Forman, 2-3, (Honolulu: College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, University of Hawai’i and the East-West Center, 1997). 27 On the issue of language rights, for example, one side will insist on the use of the mother tongue as a fundamental human right and sees the increasing demand for the use of English in school and at work as a challenge to this right.47 The challenge to this sees the deprivation of English also as a violation of a human right. This violation, which the proponents of this argument call “linguistic deprivation” see English as a world lingua franca and therefore people who are deprived of it are deprived of a basic human right.48 These two contradictory positions reflect the general flow of the arguments for or against English. One side points to the continued marginalization of local languages and cultures and the other side points to the universality of English. One of the remarkable things about the English debate is how citizens of former colonies have taken up the defense of English. Singaporean writer, Edwin Thumboo has been one of the most vocal advocates of the idea of English as a newly colonized language. Coming from his experience in Singapore whose multi-ethnic and multi-language society was born out of the colonial experience, Thumboo sees English as the key toward forging unity within a new postcolonial society. The vision is no longer one of an erasure of culture but rather of a preservation through English. Thumboo argues for the ability English to work as neutral media that can communicate local experiences and thus create a new literature with a separate and distinct tradition from Anglo-American literature. Thumboo’s description of “other literatures, some with an unbroken written tradition of two thousand years and more, others, oral in character of comparable antiquity and contemporary force, and all feeding those in English through forms, verbal strategies and repositories that include images and symbols”49 suggests a picture of a siphoning off and an enlarging and swelling of English. This perspective actually speaks about the creation of “a separate literature…[whose] moving finger is distinctive of its time and place.”50 The concern is clearly focused on the creation of a new and separate “world” and a new 47 James W. Tollefson, Planning Language, Planning Inequality: Language Policy in the Community, (London: Longman, 1991), 221. 48 Robert Burchfield, The English Language, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 160-161. 49 Thumboo, “New Literatures in English: Imperatives for a Comparative Approach,” in Literature(s) in English, ed. Wolfgang Zach, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1990), 25. 50 Ibid, 24 28 and separate literature but the issue of the effect on the local languages and cultures is underaddressed. Those who would defend English51 have a rather organic vision of it. Unlike older and stricter language practices that insisted on the correctness and standardization of English, the many generations of English imposition have resulted in an English of today that is sensitive to other cultures. Bailey and Gorlach argument that “the initial editors of the OED virtually excluded words not in general use in Great Britain and the United States, [but] their successors have recognized the international dimension of English…”52 suggests a brave, new English of a globalized world. This opening up of English is, here, looked upon as a kind of favor granted by English to local cultures. Other sectors, however, might see it as a new strategy for domination. “Globalization” is the new catchword of the pundits of development strategists but even business and marketing have now even coined the word “glocalization” to indicate the imperative of the market to be sensitive to local cultures. The debate does not seem to be much of a debate at all. While one side is concerned about the elbowing out of local languages by the big bully English, the other is engaged in describing the gargantuatization of English. They describe the process by which English becomes an even bigger and more bloated bully that can more easily elbow out the others. This is not to say that the englishes and the literatures and discourses in English (of which this thesis is an example) that come of postcolonial societies are not authentic, powerful, and legitimate cultures. They are. However, their existence does not negate the fact of language marginalization and the fact that language marginalization is almost always the doppelganger of other forms of marginalization. The most heart-felt denouncements of English center around its ability to erase cultures and/or alienate younger generations from their traditional culture. Once such account, given by 51 See also Braj B. Kachru, “Introduction: The Other Side of English and the 1990s” in The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, second edition, ed. Braj B. Kachru, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992) and James Alatis and Carolyn A. Straehle, “The Universe of English: Imperialism, Chauvinism, and Paranoia” in World Englishes 2000, ed. Larry E. Smith and Michael L. Forman, (Honolulu: College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature, University of Hawai’I and the East-West Center, 1997). 52 Bailey and Gorlach, “Introduction,” 4. 29 Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, relates the story of his colonial education and the slow disintegration of his culture in the face of it. And then I went to school, a colonial school, and this [community] harmony was broken. The language of my education was no longer the language of my culture…In Kenya, English became more than a language: it was the language, and all the others had to bow before it in deference…language and literature were taking us further and further from ourselves to other selves, from our world to other worlds. 53 Connected to this experience is the experience of the creation of hierarchies of language and of hierarchies of race and culture. Robert Phillipson identifies this process as linguistic imperialism which he defines as “the dominance of English asserted and maintained by the establishment and continuous reconstruction of structural and cultural inequalities between English and other languages.”54 While Phillipson emphasizes the “continuous reconstruction” of inequality, others underscore the colonial origins of English. Chris Searle offers this smoldering critique of English: Let us be clear that the English language has been a monumental force and institution of oppression and rabid exploitation throughout 400 years of imperialist history…when we talk of ‘mastery’ of the Standard language, we must be conscious of the terrible irony of the word, that the English language itself was the language of the master, the carrier of his arrogance and brutality. 55 This emphasis on English’s dark past is, predictably, something the other side would downplay. Kachru, on the other hand, argues that colonialism was not the only cause for the spread of English and assigns literary heritage, its connection to a high social status, and its association with science, technology, trade and diplomacy some of the blame/credit.56 Finally, sociolinguists have cautioned us on how the spread of English is related to the spread of Western mental structures and categories. Alastair Pennycook tells us that the global spread of English is “inevitably bound up with the global transmission of Western forms of 53 Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature, 11-12, (London: James Currey, 1981). 54 Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 47. 55 Chris Searle, “A Common Language,” Race and Class 35 (1983): 68. 56 Kachru, “Introduction: The Other Side of English and the 1990s”, 2-3. 30 knowledge and culture; it is the language in which the ‘cocacolization of the world’ is occurring.”57 Operative here is the language-as-social-artifact perspective that was discussed earlier and its irreconcilability with language-as-instrument perspective. It is not as though progress has not been made since 1835 when Thomas Babington Macaulay declared: Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature, or at the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that which would be the most useful to our native subjects .We must at present our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.”58 Today, as Thumboo and Kachru argue, English has become a world language, no longer owned by the imperial powers but claimed by those who were colonized through it. Of the seven hundred million users, Thumboo explains, more than half “are non-native speakers who, through their mother tongues, inevitably bring their culture and sensibility and the structure of their own languages into English, thereby creating a variety distinct to their part of the world.59” This new perspectives on the English language are characterized by a caution against explicit, old-style declarations of the superiority of English and are cognizant, if not respectful of the local cultures and the local vernaculars and their role in the forming of the varieties of Englishes. These perspective are, however, still very much linked to the Victorian tradition and the Arnoldian aesthetic that defined culture as “the best of what has been said and thought in the world” and the English language as superior to all languages and cultures of the world. By asserting that it is English itself that has been colonized by the former colonies, this perspective ignores and thus condones the continuing propensity of English to exist as the language of domination and overlook the many forms of linguistic and literary resistance to it. 57 Pennycook, “English, Universities, and Struggles over Culture and Knowledge,” in East-West Dialogue in Knowledge and Higher Education, ed. Ruth Hayhoe and Julia Pan, (Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 75. 58 Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Minute on English Education,” in Macaulay: Prose and Poetry, ed. G.M. Young, 722, 723, 729, (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1952). 59 Edwin Thumboo, “New Literatures in English: Imperatives for a Comparative Approach” in Literature(s) in English, ed. Wolfgang Zach, (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1990), 17. 31 Alastair Pennycook describes the current dominant discourse on the spread of English as being commonly seen as natural (its widespread use is a by-product of neutral global forces), neutral (because of its international status, it is not related to any particular culture or set of interests), and beneficial (the more widespread its use, the more people will be able to communicate with each other).”60 It is a strategy that appears a clone of the rationale for justifying English in Philippine society created and vigorously promoted by the Americans throughout their occupation of the Philippines. The experience of the Philippines of English thus offers a unique perspective through which to understand how English exists and operates in the continuing past. The position that I take in this study is clearly defined. I see English as an imposed language that comes always in the guise of neutrality and on the grounds of benevolence. The apologists for English emphasize their new-found power to mold English and to constitute new worlds. Without denying the legitimacy of these new subcultures that have taken on English and without denying the possibility of genuine change through them, I argue that focusing on the malleable character of English that now allows for inclusion silences the real epistemic violence done to local languages. The parallels to history are unmistakable. Using the themes of neutrality and efficiency, the colonial officials imposed English on the Philippines and disenfranchised the local languages. The English-proficient elite did not defend English the way contemporary English-apologists but through them the omnipresence of English was assured. The Discourse on English and the Tagalog Campaign This thesis is made up of essentially two parts, the first (on the discourse on English) present as a discussion of it but also as a tool for the understanding of the context within which the second part (on the Tagalog campaign) takes of from. Together, these two parts are an accounting of the politics of language in the Philippines during the American period. The two 60 Pennycook, “English, Universities, and Struggles over Culture and Knowledge,” 75. 32 parts are divided almost equally with the first three chapters (after this one) devoted to the English and the next three on the Tagalog campaign. Chapter Two is a discussion of the philosophy of American exceptionalism of which English education played a central role. Exceptionalism is important to understanding how the American colonial officials understood or projected their presence in the Philippines and in particular their presence in and policies on Philippine public education. This chapter contains a comparison between American education policies (almost always projected as exceptional) and that of the British in Malaya and Burma. The analysis finds many similarities and finds that although American education policies were different, they were hardly exceptional. Chapter Three contains a discussion of the discourse about English in the Philippines— how the American colonial officials very systematically and “scientifically” created certain knowledge (much of it contradictory and unfounded) about the Filipinos, about Spanish rule, about Tagalog and the local languages, and about English itself—in order to justify its decision to implement public education in the English language. Chapter Four is an extension of the previous chapter but is focused on the education reports that were put out by the American colonial government over thirty years. The analysis tracks, not so much a changing discourse as much as a change in the temper of a colonial assessment of the security of the place of English in Philippine society. Chapters Three and Four illustrate how the English policy over time relaxes, accommodates, and makes space for the local languages and Tagalog in particular but at the same time also stays as rigid as ever. These two chapters also emphasize the fierceness and strength of the English campaign that created a feeling, at least in the first fifteen years of occupation, that the local languages were going to be annihilated. This is essential for understanding the committed, fervent, and brave campaign on the part of the Tagalog writers to save their language. Chapter Five contains a discussion of the historiography of the history of Tagalog and the development of the national language during the American period. The current works that exist are short, contain many gaps and many misappropriations and misnomers. This chapter demonstrates how the material discussed in Chapters Six and Seven, essential to recognizing the 33 strong resistance to the English policy and to understanding the nature of that resistance, have been erased and excluded. Chapter Six examines the first expressions in Tagalog against the English policy and the first articulations of the inextricable role of language and a common heritage or lahi in the forming of the Philippine nation. The discussion centers on a series of essays that appeared in the Tagalog daily Muling Pagsilang, between 1903 and 1906. The focus of the discussion is to show, among other things, that the Tagalog writers in Muling Pagsilang functioned as middlepersons who translated to its popular readership the new, modern ideas about society, culture, democracy and nationhood but also translated to the nationalist elite who were the bearers of these new, modern ideas, concepts “from below” about language, history, heritage and the self. Chapter Seven looks at the campaign, carried out in English, to make Tagalog and/or the local languages the medium of instruction in public schools (which extended later to making it also the national language). The chapter focuses on key figures: Jorge Bocobo (and his debate with Camilo Osias), Trinidad Pardo de Tavera (and the language debate reproduced in the textbook Thinking for Ourselves), Najeeb Saleby, Gabriel Bernardo, Eulogio Rodriguez, the Liwayway writers and Cecilio Lopez. By focusing on the difference in discourse in these articulations and the discourse in the Muling Pagsilang essays (written in Tagalog), the chapter attempts to illustrate how language itself sets the tone for and creates the limits of the way in which relations between power, language, colonialism, and nation-building will be understood. Chapter Eight functions as a kind of conclusion. It begins with a comparison of the anticolonial struggles (from the very start of the 20th Century to the 1930s) of Burma and the Philippines and in particular in the importance given local language and traditions in that struggle. This discussion helps frame the concluding discussion regarding the way in which the narratives of colonial domination and anti-colonial resistances have been told in the past and how these narratives have an impact on the way in which our own language history has been told. The conclusion of the thesis underscores the idea that although English was an imperative that America was not willing to give up even after granting the Philippines its independence and how through their unflinching insistence on it were able to “win” by constitutionally instituting the 34 dominance of English over the Philippines, the Tagalog campaign was also a story of triumph in that, through various resistance strategies, the idea of an accomplished Filipino nation with a common language generated during the Revolution (but interrupted by American occupation and the vigorous English campaign) was revived and reformatted forty years later. One of the great limitations of this study is its focus only on the Tagalog campaign. During this period, most, if not all the Philippine languages were going through a similar renaissance where there was great interest in reforming the language and in literary production. Surely, a study that considers all Philippine languages will present an even more complete and complex picture of how the local languages stood their ground while responding to the new political terrain. This study is limited to just three language blocs or interest-groups: the Americans who promoted English, the English-proficient elite who campaigned for a national language and the Tagalog organizations that defended Tagalog. The attitudes taken by each of these groups toward the language of their campaign sharply contrast to each other and hint at the very outcome of the story. The American self-assuredness and even arrogance about English differs from the formal attitude the English-proficient elite had toward the national language which also differs from the genuine loyalty and affection (difficult for a researcher to quantify or analyze but attempted here in Chapter Six) the Tagalog societies had for Tagalog. Though their worldviews, interest, and linguistic philosophies/experiences were disparate (there was disagreement even within each of the groups), their choices and actions coalesced into the negotiated outcome of 1937 that allowed for a national language that presumably embodied the spirit (lahi) of the people to exist alongside the mandated English. It is the work of this present study to dissect and reconstruct how the various forces asserted their positions until that final outcome was reached. It is also the work of this study to make a cogent and critical assessment of the role of language in colonial society. It is hoped that this effort contributes to the continual campaign waged by Filipino nationalists toward not just linguistic self-determination but toward genuine cultural, political and economic self-determination. 35 36 [...]... situates the struggle for language in the University of the Philippines within the larger context of the struggle within the nation Her third chapter, The Consolidation of English and the Introduction of the National Language Debate,” is of particular use to this study in that it provides a comprehensive account of the language debates within the University of the Philippines during the 19 20s and it... reign of English as the common language over the islands waned about midway through America’s occupation of the Philippines In 19 25, an official government report on education, the Monroe report, would review and drastically limit the definition of English as the common language in the Philippines while at the same time continue to affirm its place in Philippine society From the original vision of English. .. Philippines: The Commonwealth Period, 19 35 -19 41 by Donald Edward Douglas (dissertation, University of Michigan, 19 79), American Education in the Philippines, the Early Years: American Pioneer Teachers and the Filipino Responses, 19 00 -19 35” by Mary Bonzo Suzuki (dissertation, Univeristy of California, Berkley, 19 91) , and The Education of the Thomasites: American School Teachers in Philippine Colonial. .. English policy and the first articulations of the inextricable role of language and a common heritage or lahi in the forming of the Philippine nation The discussion centers on a series of essays that appeared in the Tagalog daily Muling Pagsilang, between 19 03 and 19 06 The focus of the discussion is to show, among other things, that the Tagalog writers in Muling Pagsilang functioned as middlepersons who translated... from the Spanish and were in control of most of the Philippines Philippine independence was declared in June of 18 98 but in December of the same year, the Treaty of Paris between Spain and the United States provided for the sale of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam by Spain to the United States On February 4, 18 99 (two days short of the approval of the U.S Senate of the Treaty of Paris), the Philippine -American. .. 19 30s) of Burma and the Philippines and in particular in the importance given local language and traditions in that struggle This discussion helps frame the concluding discussion regarding the way in which the narratives of colonial domination and anti -colonial resistances have been told in the past and how these narratives have an impact on the way in which our own language history has been told The conclusion... familiar with the issues surrounding language, colonization, nation, and identity when the Americans arrived with their own ideas about English in the Philippines Language and Nation Building The process of cementing English into Philippine society follows a somewhat ironic pattern The occupation of the Philippines was initially coercive as was the implementation of English Following the much-publicized... feeling, at least in the first fifteen years of occupation, that the local languages were going to be annihilated This is essential for understanding the committed, fervent, and brave campaign on the part of the Tagalog writers to save their language Chapter Five contains a discussion of the historiography of the history of Tagalog and the development of the national language during the American period. .. essays about languages written in Tagalog very early on during the American occupation On the issue of language and colonialism, there exists quite a large a body of work37 a good number of which are focused on English education as a tool for colonial control Two recent studies, The Study of English and the Problem of Consciousness in English (dissertation, National University of Singapore, 20 01) by T... Philippine National Language by Ernest J Frei (Manila: Institute of National Language, 19 59) and Language and Nationalism: The Philippine Experience Thus Far by Andrew B Gonzalez, (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 19 80) present, in a somewhat linear fashion, the history of English in the Philippines and the run up to the establishment of the National Language based on Tagalog in 19 37 These studies . tradition that hints at how, for these discourse- makers, the questions of language are inseparable from the questions of the modes of production, questions of independence and questions of the. activities and places like birthday parties, and christenings. The Miseducation of the Filipino One of the most lasting legacies of American colonialism upon the Filipinos is the enduring idea. was the first thorough examination and indictment of the American education project in the Philippines. Constantino detailed how education, through the production of myths and through the institution