Tag: english

Kudos to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for FINALLY junking Tagalog!

June 18, 2014July 31, 2022 benign0 46 Comments

Long overdue! The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) memo directing the removal of Tagalog (a.k.a. “Filipino”) as a mandatory subject in the Philippines’ General Education Curriculum (GEC) effectively frees millions of Filipinos from wasting time on a dead-end field of learning. On implementation of the directive, the subject will be relegated to Grades 11 and…

Culture, Education

Top-notch command of the English language opens doors

April 7, 2014 benign0 57 Comments

We’d like to believe that we deserve a society that treats people fairly regardless of how well they speak and write English and regardless of whether they speak it with a regional accent or not. We think, if we continue stomping our feet enough in a loud appeal to nationalist sentiment, that we could one…

Culture, Education, Lifestyle, Society

English proficiency is a continuous improvement process

April 27, 2012November 24, 2013 FallenAngel 37 Comments

Filipinos are generally good at English. At least that’s the impression foreigners get when they encounter us. It is also one of the primary reasons why foreign employers like hiring Filipinos. It is well-established that English has made its way into the world as a sort of lingua franca, and we wield it as an…

Culture, Development, Education, Society

Why greatness will continue to elude the Filipino people

March 20, 2012 benign0 23 Comments

So we want to be a “proud” people, do we? Well perhaps it is time we took the bull by its horns and ask ourselves: Proud of what exactly? You see, this is the 21st Century. Old notions of one race being superior to another or an entire people being anointed as blessed above the…

Culture, Development, Economy, Education, Government, Media, Society

Is prosperity with ‘no one left behind’ really possible?

September 5, 2011 benign0 5 Comments

I enjoyed reading a a blog post recently published in ProPinoy.net authored by a certain “bill” (quoted as it appears on the site — not capitalised). In his article, “reThinking Soriano“, “bill” makes an intriguing statement that got me thinking… So the question is not, â€œEnglish or Filipino?â€ The question is how to live and…

Development, Economy, Money Talks

The truth about Tagalog that James Soriano failed to explain

September 4, 2011June 18, 2014 Ilda 42 Comments

William “The Chair Wrecker” Esposo of Philstar.com has joined in the debate about the Philippine national language (or lack of it) in his recent column. This was in response to the controversial and now removed article written by James Soriano from Manila Bulletin. While Esposo rabidly defended our constitutionally mandated national language, Tagalog, he wrote…

Culture, Development, Education, Society

How a simple question evolved into a heated debate: Is Tagalog a language or a dialect?

September 1, 2011July 26, 2018 Miguel Tajan 15 Comments

The answer is simple, Tagalog is a language. Why make such a simple question into something so complex? I believe that the answer lies in the confusion between the definitions of a language and a dialect. We all know what a language is; itâ€™s what we speak everyday to communicate, so letâ€™s take a closer…

Culture, Education, Society

Why there is no Tagalog word for ‘efficiency’

August 30, 2011February 13, 2018 benign0 37 Comments

Lots of people seem to have, at best, a rather shallow understanding of what I mean when I keep harping about the lack of a concept of “efficiency” in the Tagalog dialect. My simple explanation is that the lack of a concept of efficiency native to (or long embedded in) Tagalog reflects the inherent intellectual…

Development, Education, Science, Technology