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There is
no question that to find employment in an
English-speaking world, one must learn how to speak
English.
In the
same manner, anyone who wants to go to France to work or
just to vacation there must know French.
You
really don’t have to be proficient in English to land a
job in Japan, Korea, Spain, Hong Kong and the Middle
East. In America, in Canada, Britain and Australia,
however, English is a must.
In those
countries, the dominant languages accepted by employers
are Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic.
Try
English there and you will just get lost. In many cases,
speaking English can even cost you your life!
As to
local employment in the
Philippines,
English proficiency is not a necessity, at least for the
laborers, the messengers and the clerks. All they need
is a little English and that’s it.
Filipino
students are now being required (again) to use English
as the medium of instruction in schools.
There
will be a backlash, for sure, because anything that is
forced on students can backfire.
In the
bad old days, many students had failed to get their
diplomas because of the 24 units of Spanish required of
them.
All
sorts of arguments are being used to convince Filipinos
to speak English with the English or American twang
because the government says English is the language of
prosperity.
If
language is to be measured by the number of Filipinos
(including Filipino-Americans) speaking English in
foreign workplaces, they are in for a big surprise.
The
biggest overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) can be found in
the Middle East and in countries outside of America.
These
OFWs are those who remit without fail the dollars that
make life in the Philippines less difficult.
There is
progress in the
Philippines
because of the remittances of the non-English-speaking
workers.
But here
comes the weird idea coming from outgoing House Deputy
Majority Leader Eduardo Gullas, who quoted Jose Rizal as
saying these words of wisdom:
“Ang
hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay mas masahol
pa sa mabahong isda [People who do not love their
own language smell fouler than rotten fish].”
Of
course, Gullas can further improve his English
translation of Rizal’s original Tagalog version by
sharpening his English a little more because, after all,
nobody’s perfect.
Were
Rizal and Gullas speaking of Spanish and English (and
not Philippine dialects) as languages when the two asked
that Filipinos should love their own languages?
Rizal
hardly spoke Tagalog. What he loved was the Spanish
language. The same may be true with Gullas’s love of
English if that is his pleasure.
In
international forums, such as the United Nations, the
World Trade Organization and even at the Asian
Development Bank, speakers are not required to speak
English. They have translators and interpreters who take
care of the language problem.
But here
in the
Philippines,
from the President to the Senate President, the House
Speaker, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and
those under them, English is the language they are
accustomed to.
During
the time of Rizal, those who did not know Spanish were
called tontos or bobos.
In our
present era, those who cannot speak, read or write in
English are called nincompoops.
Are we
more English than the Englishman?
E-mail: raulbvalino@yahoo.com.ph |
