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Please contact rights@benjamins.nl or consult our website: www.benjamins.com Tables of Contents, abstracts and guidelines are available at www.benjamins.com chapter 10 he grip of English and Philippine language policy Beatriz P. Lorente he grip of English in the Philippines signiies an enduring and lawed image of national development that is monocentric with an English-dominant core. It traces the trajectory of this dominance of English in the Philippines from its introduction as the de facto medium of instruction in the public school system during the American colonial era to its incorporation as the indispensable competitive edge of Filipinos in the current era of globalization. his privileged position of English in the country’s linguistic economy has been reinforced by the Filipino elite’s symbolic struggles over power in the wake of post-colonialism and the country’s structural insertion at the margins of the global economy as a source of cheap, English-speaking migrant labor. he grip of English in the country may be mitigated by the introduction of mother tongue based multilingual education (MTBLE). he framework of MTBLE appears to conceive of national development in terms of widening access to valuable material and symbolic resources such as literacy and higher levels of formal education. As the MTBLE is still in its infancy, the extent to which it can live up to its promise remains to be seen. In its 2005 annual report, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) attributed the global competitiveness of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to “the continued conidence of foreign principals to employ Filipino workers who are competent, highly trained, English proicient, with caring attitude and adaptable to work environment” (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration 2006: 8, emphasis mine). he POEA’s portrayal of OFWs is not signiicantly diferent from how the Philippine government depicted the Filipino labour force to potential foreign investors in a 1974 advertisement in the New York Times: We’ve put our house in order. You can’t aford to overlook the new Philippines in surveying your Asian prospect this year. For the authoritarian government in Manila has put an end to political factionalism and social anarchy. Restored peace and order. Purged the bureaucracy of the inept and the corrupt. Freed economic policy-making from the constraints of extremist rhetoric. Result: the renewed optimism of 40 million people and the resurgence of the national economy … © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 188 Beatriz P. Lorente We like multinationals … Local staf? Clerks with a college education start at $35 … accountants come for $67, executive secretaries for $148 … Our labour force speaks your language. Whether you’re talking electronic components, garments or car manufacturing. National literacy was placed at 83.4% in 1973 (English is the medium of instruction).… (Tollefson 1991: 140, emphasis mine) More than 30 years apart, the representations of Filipino workers in these two texts are striking in their similarities. Both showcase the Filipino workforce as being ideal and desirable labour for foreign employers; both market the skills and the supposed particular qualities of Filipino workers that distinguish them from others; both include English proiciency as one of, if not the most distinguishing quality of Filipinos. A very similar discourse is also emerging in relation to the call center industry which is seen as the country’s “emerging sunshine industry” (Jobstreet.com 2003). In its attempt to attract businesses, the Philippines has been emphasising the English proiciency of its workforce and most especially, the “Filipinos’ familiarity and ainity for American culture and jargon” because of the country’s colonial history, which are supposedly the country’s “natural advantages” over India (Dicarlo 2003; Alojipan 2003; Oliva 2003). hese similar ways in which the Philippine labour force is portrayed underline the structural and historical continuities in the Philippines’ peripheral location in the world system. hey also underline the grip of English on these structural, historical and social formations of the country and signify an enduring image of national development and globalization as monocentric with an English-dominant core. In a country where English is, by and large, privileged above Filipino, the national language, and the other Philippine languages, this grip of English is ideological as well as material. he justiication of the privileged position of English in the country’s linguistic economy is premised on “a structuralist and positivist view of language that suggests that all languages can be free of cultural and political inluences and more particularly, [that] English is even more neutral than other languages” and a “neoliberal framework of understanding the country’s situation, globalization, and the global market within which English occupies a crucial place” (Pennycook 1994: 12; Tupas 2001a: 19). Simply put, the grip of English in the country is anchored in the widespread and widely accepted but decontextualized belief that English is neutral and beneicial. he grip of English in the Philippines is also material, in the sense that beliefs about English permeate and conigure economic, social and political provisions and processes that distribute and regulate access to valuable resources and that have an impact on the everyday lives of Filipinos. In the Philippines, English (or more speciically, “standard © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy 189 English”) is the marker of and the gatekeeper to a privileged socioeconomic class (Hau & Tinio 2003; Tollefson 1991; Tupas 2004b). It fosters linkages within this privileged social class that cut across ethnic groups in the country while widening the gap between social classes (Hau & Tinio 2003). In the subsequent sections of this essay, I trace the trajectory of this grip of English in the Philippines from its introduction during the American colonial era to its incorporation as the indispensable competitive edge Filipinos have in the current era of globalization. I do this in order to contextualize how the grip of English in the Philippines cannot be disassociated from broader struggles over the distribution of valuable material and symbolic capital. I then explore how this grip of English may be mitigated by recent moves to practice as well as to institutionalize mother tongue based multilingual education (MLE) in the country. Tracing the grip of English in the Philippines English was introduced to the Philippines at the very beginning of the American colonial period when it became the de facto medium of instruction in what has come to be considered as “one of the most positive and enduring innovations brought by the American colonial government … the public school system” (Gonzalez 1985: 91). he Americans opened the irst public school on Corregidor Island, within less than a month ater Admiral Dewey destroyed the Spanish Navy in the Philippines in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. his apparent prioritization of education literally came on the heels of Spanish colonisation which had not succeeded in providing a good measure of public primary education, and which had practically put the Spanish language only within the reach of the mestizos and ilustrados, the very elite of Philippine society (Churchill 2003).1 It was mainly because of the public school education system and the use of English as the basis of all public instruction that English followed a very diferent trajectory from Spanish: it was disseminated more widely and entrenched far more efectively in state policies as well as in the public imagination (Hau and 1. he lack of Spanish usage in the Philippines resulted from a decision by the Spanish crown to encourage friars to use the native languages, in the hopes that this would speed up religious conversion. While the Spanish crown changed this policy in the sixteenth century, the teaching of Spanish was hampered by a lack of funds and teachers, the absence of an organized system of primary education and scarce teaching materials (Hau & Tinio 2003: 338–339). By the end of 333 years of colonial rule, the estimated number of Filipinos who could speak Spanish was only 2.46% of an adult population of 4.6 million (Gonzalez 1980). © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 190 Beatriz P. Lorente Tinio 2003).2 Apart from the system of public instruction, Gonzalez (1980: 27–28) cited two other factors that contributed to the rapid spread of English and its swit ascent to the apex of the country’s linguistic economy: “the positive attitude of Filipinos towards Americans; and the incentives given to Filipinos to learn English in terms of career opportunities, government service, and politics.” English was also the oicial language of the civil service. Along with education, it was considered by the American colonisers to be the prerequisite for participating in the legislation, administration and leadership of the country. In this way, English came to be identiied with the “progressive” American ideals of “enlightenment”, “democracy” and “self-governance”. Even then, the grip of English was such that even when the 1925 Monroe survey noted that Filipino students had problems learning English and recommended the use of Filipino vernacular languages for teaching manners and morals, and despite various recommendations by educators to use the vernacular languages, English remained the oicial language and the sole medium of instruction during the American colonial period (Gonzalez 1980). In analysing the impact of this valorisation of English during the American colonial period, Constantino (2002: 181) emphatically argues that: he irst and perhaps the masterstroke in the plan to use education as an instrument of colonial policy was the decision to use English as the medium of instruction. English became the wedge that separated Filipinos from their past and later was to separate educated Filipinos from the masses of their countrymen … 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. his was the beginning of their education. At the same time, it was the beginning of their miseducation, for they learned no longer as Filipinos but as colonials. It must be emphasised that in his statement, Constantino outlined two devastating “English efects”. First, by providing Filipinos with a semblance of access to the colonial language, American colonisers ensured the “forgetting” of the physical and symbolic violence wrought by colonisation while guaranteeing a (misplaced) sense of indebtedness (utang na loob) from Philippine society (see Gonzalez 1985). Tupas calls this the “problem of consciousness” in the Philippines where strategies of forgetting and erasure have efectively idealised the colonial history of the country and nulliied the colonial accoutrements of English (Tupas 2001b, 2003). Second, English became the marker of and the gatekeeper to an educated and privileged class. As both a resource for and a site of symbolic struggles, English 2. hus, “at the tail-end of the American period (1898–1935), ater only 37 years, the 1939 Census reported a total of 4,264,549 out of a total population of 16,000,303 (or 26%) who claimed the ability to speak English” (Gonzalez 1980: 26). © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy became a central means by which access to valuable symbolic and material capital could be regulated during and ater the American colonial period. In the postcolonial era, this “American legacy” of English shaped the landscape in which national language and bilingual education policies were debated and carried out. While there were strong sentiments for the search for and the declaration of a national language as early as 1903, the call for the development of a national language based on Tagalog (renamed Pilipino in 1959 and Filipino in 1973) in the Commonwealth Act 570 of 1940 was met by much opposition from other language groups.3 As Hau and Tinio (2003: 342) correctly point out, however: his opposition to Tagalog … should not be interpreted as a manifestation of ethnic conlict. he debate over Tagalog – one that continues to this day – relects intra-elite rivalry and internecine battles over resource allocations that happened to be parceled out by region. Not surprisingly, in this and other language debates in the country, the anti-Tagalog forces allied and continue to ally themselves with the pro-English lobby particularly within the elite, thus ensuring the viability of the colonial language as a link within a social class that cuts across regional groups and did so even at the peak of linguistic nationalism during the height of student activism in the 1970s (Hau and Tinio 2003). In 1974, a year ater the declaration that steps would be taken toward the development and formal adoption of a common national language to be known as Filipino and the provision of English and Filipino as the oicial languages of the Philippines in the 1973 Constitution, a bilingual education policy (BEP) was set in motion. Under the BEP, English was to be used as the medium of instruction (MOI) in science and mathematics, and Filipino was to be used for all other courses. his marked the irst time that the supremacy of English was to be challenged by a local language. Ostensibly, the BEP was considered to be a compromise solution to the demands of nationalism and internationalism: Filipino would do the homework of identity while English would ensure that Filipinos would stay connected to the world (Gonzalez 1998). Arguably, though, the BEP represented 3. See Gonzalez (1980) for a comprehensive history of the search for and the debates around the national language. Pilipino or Filipino, though based on Tagalog, was supposed to be an amalgam of the diferent languages of the country. It is accurate to say though that Tagalog was merely renamed in an attempt to pacify those who opposed Tagalog on the basis of regional representation. Filipino, as it exists today, is mostly if not entirely based on Tagalog. © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 191 192 Beatriz P. Lorente [a] political compromise between competing elites: the Tagalog-speaking elites who nevertheless were conversant in English and who took up the ight for Pilipino as the national language, and the non-Tagalog elites who were likewise conversant in English, but who feared that the imposition of Pilipino as the national language would put them at a disadvantage over resources necessitating competence in Pilipino. (Tupas 2004b: 20) It could well be argued that this compromise held fast in 1987 when the 1973 Constitution was revised in the wake of the 1986 People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos and Filipino was inally declared as the national language of the Philippines. As Hau and Tinio note, “the presence of a strong English-language lobby during the convention’s deliberations secured the use of English in government and in the classroom” (2003: 344). he terms of the BEP were maintained with the provisions that Filipino would be accorded the primary position as the oicial language and that Congress could strip English of its oicial language status should circumstances warrant. Competing in the global economy By the time the BEP was instituted in 1974, the Philippine political economy was already well into the process of becoming more fully incorporated into the global economy as a source of low-waged labour. Ironically, it was in this same year that the irst batch of government-sponsored Filipino contract workers was deployed to the Middle East, an early indication of how the search for a national linguistic symbol of unity would soon be overtaken, or had already been overtaken, by the insertion of the Philippines into the world system as a source of cheap, Englishspeaking labour. For the groups whose rallying cry for English had been that Tagalog or Filipino would not represent them in the national arena, their almost indisputable argument now was that English was necessary if the country was to participate and fully beneit from the global economy. Arguably, in this light, the BEP’s biggest winners were English which remained preeminent in the country’s linguistic economy and the elite groups whose interests were now legitimised. he biggest losers were the many Filipinos whose wages had been eroded by their incorporation into the global labour market and whose varying levels of English competence facilitated their entry as low-waged workers in an export-oriented, labour intensive light industry inanced by foreign capital (Tollefson 1991). his was because in the 1970s, the Philippine government had restructured the education system, in accordance with the perceived needs of export-oriented industrialisation. Restructuring the education sector was a vital complement to the changes that had been made to the labour sector. Major changes to the Philippine educational system can be traced back to Martial Law. According to Tollefson, © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy Various presidential decrees transformed the elementary and high school curricula into “work-oriented” programmes to prepare you for participation in commercial and industrial enterprises … he goal was to ensure that the educational system would equip high school students with speciic skills needed for industry and agriculture … In addition, beginning in 1976, the World Bank funded publication and distribution of millions of new textbooks and manuals through the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports that were designed to help the system of education respond to the new economic policy. (Tollefson 1991: 149) hese changes to the Philippine educational system were reinforced further by the institutionalisation of the National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) which became the country’s main educational stratiier: With standards set by the central government, the NCEE determined who among the high school graduates could go on to college, earn their degrees and most possibly become white-collar workers. hose who did not pass could either enroll in technical education certiicate courses or start working on low-paying jobs because by then they would have been taught vocational skills in high school through institutionalized technical programmes. (Tupas 2004a: 6) hese changes in Philippine educational policy translated to [a] renewed emphasis on English and a shit towards vocational and technical English training. he Marcos government’s strong support of English was due primarily to its crucial role in meeting the labour requirements of the Philippine economy. (Tollefson 1991: 150) he three main labour needs at that time were consistent with the country’s policy of export-oriented industrialisation inanced and managed by foreign capital; they consisted of: (1) A large pool of workers for unskilled and semi-technical jobs in light manufacturing, assembly and the like. (2) Oice staf and middle managers able to work under the managers of transnational corporations investing in the Philippines. (3) A service industry for foreign businesses, including maintenance crews, hotel staf and domestic workers. (Tollefson 1991: 150) What the formal education system then produced was a multi-tiered skillsoriented population whose proiciencies in English were ordered accordingly, with most students being educated for low-paying jobs requiring only basic English (Tollefson 1991: 150).4 4. See also Tupas (2001a, 2004a). © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 193 194 Beatriz P. Lorente hese diferences reproduced the already glaring social and economic disparities in the Philippines. hose who learned English well and who had the skills to take up the better paid white collar jobs were inevitably graduates of elite schools and universities, with most coming from the well-of and landed families in the Philippines. hose who did not learn English well were usually from the impoverished areas of the country; they usually did not go on to college and they ended up in the large pool of semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the manufacturing and service sectors. As Tollefson (1991: 151) pointedly states, “the policy of using English in schools thus serves a dual purpose: it helps to ensure that a great number of students fail, and it produces the necessary number of graduates with appropriate English skills.” he Philippine education system’s pattern of producing a hierarchy of labour with corresponding levels of English skills meant for an externally-deined labour market has resulted in a deteriorating education system that is unable to respond realistically and relevantly to the social and economic needs of the country (Toh & Floresca-Cawagas 2003). his is most evident in the disparity between the degrees of most college graduates and the demand for such skills or expertise in the domestic labour market, leading to a rise in the number of educated underemployed and unemployed in the country who, since 1974, have been funneled into overseas labour migration. Ensuring that the manpower demands of an overseas labour market were met has been one of the priorities of Philippine presidents from Ferdinand Marcos in 1974 to until recently, Gloria Arroyo. During her term, Arroyo explicitly pushed for the goals of Philippine education to match what the global labour market needed. In a 2002 speech, she urged the education system to “produce and produce” the workers that are “in demand” globally: Kaya pag sinasabi nila brain drain, sabi ko, hindi, naglilingkod doon naglilingkod pa rin dito dahil hindi kinakalimutan ’yung mga pamilya, ’yung pamayanan, at sa ganung paraan pati ’yung bansa natin ay nakikinabang. Ang importante kung ano ’yung nakikita nating demand sa mga skills, ang ating school system ay dapat produce nang produce. Kung malaki ang demand sa nurses, produce more nurses; kung malaki ang demand sa I.T. workers, produce more I.T. workers kasi kailangan din natin sila dito, kailangan sa ibang bansa. Kaya pakinabang kung nandoon, pakinabang kung nandito sila, so produce more because there is an overall increase in demand. [So when they say brain drain, I say, no, they are serving there but they are still serving here because they do not forget their families, their communities, and in this way our country also beneits. he important thing is when we see the skills that are in demand, our school system should produce and produce. If there is a big demand for nurses, produce more nurses; if there is a big demand for I.T. workers, produce more I.T. workers, because we need them here and other countries need them. hey’re an advantage there and they’re an advantage here, so produce more because there is an overall increase in demand.] (Arroyo 2002, emphasis and translation mine) © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy With competitiveness in the global labour market being equated with English proiciency and with national development conceived as being largely if not wholly dependent on such competitiveness, it is not surprising that debates about language issues in the Philippines have, at least until recently, been dominated by dire warnings that Filipinos are losing their “competitive edge” over other countries because of their supposedly declining levels of English competence and that the only way to address this is to abandon the BEP and “return to English” (Varella 2003; Remo 2004). Supporters of a “return to English” have argued that English is “an economic strategy” that is “important for the alleviation of poverty” (Manila Standard 2003; Avendano, Contreras, & AFP 2003). English is the cure-all and its use would “save the Philippines” (Malaya 2003). During the Arroyo presidency, proiciency in English was made the major policy goal of the Department of Education. In January 2003, Arroyo directed a “return to English” as the main medium of instruction in Philippine schools (Kabiling 2003). In accordance with the direction the president was taking, several house bills seeking to permanently institutionalise this “return to English” were forwarded. In September 2005, the House Committees on Higher Education and on Basic Education endorsed and sought the immediate approval of House Bill 4701 (HB 4701) which, among other things, would make it mandatory for English to be the oicial medium of instruction in all academic subjects, in high school (Rosario 2005). he bill was passed almost a year later on September 21, 2006 with the majority support of 206 signatories. It did not become a law only because there was no subsequent approval from the Senate. Until recent times, there have been few signiicant challenges to the bid to have English-only as the medium of instruction. he challenge from advocates of the bilingual education program was muted. hey chose to argue on constitutional, scientiic and educational grounds. hey contended that the Arroyo directive and the “return to English” proposals were unconstitutional and at odds with scientiic and educational indings where children learn a second language more eiciently if they are already literate in their irst language. his argument was muled by those who blamed the BEP for the perceived decline in English language competence among Filipinos as well as those who decried the use of Filipino as a medium of instruction. In tracing the grip of English on the structural, historical and economic formations of the country, I have shown the trajectory of English in the Philippines from its insertion in the country’s linguistic economy during the period of American colonisation to its embeddedness – most especially via the education system – in the economic and social processes which produce Filipino workers for an externally-deined labour market. In this regard, the role of English in the Philippines can be seen as the evolving nexus of interests within and beyond the state. Within the Philippine state, the dominance of English has been reinforced by © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 195 196 Beatriz P. Lorente the elite’s symbolic struggles over power in the wake of post-colonialism. Beyond the Philippine state, the entrenchment of English is secured by the country’s structural insertion at the margins of the world economy, irst as an export-oriented economy catering to foreign capital then as a source of cheap and English-speaking workers for particular niches in the global labour market. hese intra-national and international forces, modulated at the switchboard of the state and engendered by a lawed education system, collude to produce and enforce the grip of English in the Philippines. Mitigating the grip of English Will this grip of English on the Philippines continue? Currently, there are two house bills pending in the Philippine congress which seek to permanently address the language problems of the country. he irst bill, House Bill 5619 or the Gullas, Villafuerte and Del Mar bill, is a consolidated English-only Medium of Instruction bill. It proposes that English or Filipino or the regional language may be used as the medium of instruction from preschool to Grade 3. his implies that English could be the only medium of instruction in the lower grades. From Grade 4 to 6, all levels in high school and in university, English would be promoted as the “language of instruction” in schools as well as the “language of assessment” in all government examination and entrance tests to public schools and state universities (Barawid 2009). In rationalizing this “return to English”, the main proponent of the bill, Cebu 1st district Representative Eduardo Gullas predictably emphasised the indispensability of English in ensuring that Filipinos remain competitive in the labour market: Mounting global unemployment due to the worsening economic slump has merely underscored the need for our human resources to be proicient in English – the world’s lingua franca – in order to stay highly competitive in the job markets here and abroad. (Barawid 2009) he second bill, House Bill No. 162 or the Multilingual Education bill (MLE), iled by Representative Magtanggol Gunigundo, opposes the English-only bill.5 he MLE bill proposes the use of the mother tongues as the primary medium of instruction in all subjects from pre-school up to the end of elementary education. English and Filipino would be introduced only in the later years of elementary education (starting from Grade 4) in some parts of the curriculum. In the secondary level, English and Filipino would be used as the medium of instruction, with the mother 5. he bill was originally iled as House Bill 3719 in March 2008. © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy tongues as auxiliary medium (Gunigundo 2010). Interestingly, in arguing for the institutionalisation of mother tongue based multilingual education, Gunigundo also chose to highlight how such a move would also increase Filipino competitiveness in the labour market. He emphasised how the “emancipatory” policy is “central to reforming [the] Philippine education system in order for it to provide quality education that produces graduates with good thinking and reading skills that enhance Filipino competitiveness in the labour market” (Gunigundo 2010). While both bills appear to put a similar premium on competitiveness, they represent fundamentally diferent frameworks of national development. hose who argue in favor of English-only conceive of national development in terms of integration with the global economy, facilitated largely by a labour force proicient in the world’s dominant language. hose who argue for MLE appear to imagine national development in terms of widening access to valuable material and symbolic resources, among them English and Filipino, numerical and scientiic literacy and perhaps, most importantly, the opportunity to gain higher levels of formal education. he move to use the mother tongues in Philippine formal education is certainly not new. In fact, the use of the mother tongues as auxiliary media of instruction is enshrined in Article 16, Section 7 of the 1987 Philippine constitution. Furthermore, as Tupas points out, the 20th century has seen intermittent eforts to bring vernacular education into mainstream formal education in the Philippines … here were attempts at vernacularization (1903–1909) at the start of American colonial rule in the country, and the vernacular experiments in Iloilo in the Visayan region (1948–1954) during the early postcolonial years revealed results that would later serve as good justiication for the use of local languages in the schools … here have been at least ten major research projects carried out since the Iloilo experiments attesting to the validity of mother tongue education in the early grades. (Tupas 2009: 29) What is signiicant about the MLE bill is how it represents, in Tupas’ words, a “re-engagement” with a national language policy which had been dominated and largely shaped by language ideological debates on English and Filipino, and by the increasing grip of English. he proposed institutionalisation of MLE has signiicantly shited the terms of engagement in Philippine language policy. First, MLE has moved away from conlating the mother tongues with Filipino, the national language, a tendency which, arguably, those who supported the BEP in previous language wars had. By explicitly recognizing the essential and advantageous role of the mother tongues, the MLE is acknowledging the role of local communities and how local knowledge can be valued in the classroom with the use of the mother tongues. © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 197 198 Beatriz P. Lorente Second, MLE seems to have, at least so far, successfully re-introduced empirical data as essential to debates regarding language policy in the country. MLE proponents have not only based the legitimacy of mother tongue based multilingual education on what is highly recommended by international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientiic and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), they have used local studies conducted in non-Filipino speaking parts of the country to show that the use of local languages is cognitively advantageous for students with those being taught in the mother tongue doing signiicantly better in all of the subjects, including English and Filipino, than those who were being taught using the prescribed media of instruction for the subject (e.g. English for Science, Filipino for Social Studies). he study that has perhaps been most highlighted in MLE-related publications and presentations, has been the longitudinal LubuaganKalinga MLE study where the children were monolingual in Lubuagan. To these children, the regional lingua franca, Ilocano, as well as the languages of the classroom, Filipino and English, would all be new (Dekker and Young 2005; Dumatog and Dekker 2003). he English-only camp has been largely unable to respond to the evidence-based arguments forwarded by MLE proponents. hird, MLE has broad multi-sectoral institutional support from the academe, representatives from business, crucial national and local government agencies (e.g. the Department of Education, the National Economic Development Authority, the Naga City Governance Institute, etc.) and non-government organisations. his is evident in the consortium called 170+Talaytayan MLE which has been a leading force in advocating for mother tongue based MLE.6 he consortium is made up of education stakeholders from the University of the Philippines and the Philippine Normal University, as well as non-governmental organisations such as Save the Children, Nakem International, Defenders of the Indigenous Language of the Archipelago (DILA)-Philippines, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and the Translators Association of the Philippines (170+ Talaytayan MLE: 2011). In 2010, 170+ Talaytayan MLE, along with the Department of Education and SIL, organised the irst Philippine conference-workshop on mother tongue based MLE in Cagayan de Oro City. he 2011 conference, which was held in Legazpi City, Albay was convened with various local education stakeholders and non-governmental organisations which include Bicol University, the Naga City Governance Institute and An Banwa: Kultura Boda Artes Kan Tabaco (AKBAT). Perhaps more importantly, proponents of MLE appear to be committed to encouraging and supporting the introduction and the ownership of MLE “from below”, school by school, 6. he 170+ stands for the more than 170 languages in the country. © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy 199 community by community (Nolasco, Datar & Azurin 2011).7 Nolasco, a leading proponent of MLE, has emphasised in his MLE primer that “[t]he Lubuagan experience, the DepEd lingua franca project, and other existing programs using the local languages tell us that it is already possible to undertake an MLE program without waiting for legislation” (2009: 15, emphasis mine). Moves towards introducing MLE from below have ranged from the introduction of an MLE course as part of teacher preparation to conducting intensive training for MLE trainers (Padre 2010). his grassroots approach is key not just to increasing the legitimacy of MLE as an alternative in Philippine education but also to ensuring that it can be sustained in the local communities that stand to beneit most from it. In terms of English, MLE holds the promise of redressing the issue of the distribution of this important linguistic capital. heoretically, English will potentially no longer be the sole domain of the elite. More children may have a better chance of developing a good foundation in literacy that they can use to successfully learn English as well as Filipino. More importantly, MLE proponents have framed the use of the mother tongues within the much broader project of reforming the Philippine education system and providing “quality of education for all Filipinos, including members of both ethnic and linguistic minorities and pave their escape from poverty” (Gunigundo 2010). his framing, although not without problems, may be the beginning of a fundamental shit in Philippine education from a system (with the requisite languages) that seems to be wholly constructed to meet external demands to one that addresses the issue of quality of education and equity in the Philippines, from the perspective of local communities. Some concerns However, it must be noted that while MLE may potentially mitigate the grip of English in the Philippines, the symbolic power of English remains. Proponents of MLE have been careful to highlight how MLE is not a threat to English and Filipino and that it in fact even improves the learning of English and Filipino. In the words of the proponent of the bill himself: 7. It is telling, for example, that the MLE conferences spearheaded by 170+ Talaytayan have been held outside of Manila – in Cagayan de Oro City (2010) and in Legazpi City (2011). he diferent regions have also been very active in organizing their own fora and conferences on MLE. For example, in January 2011, a mother tongue based MLE conference was held in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan. In February 2011, a forum on mother tongue based MLE is scheduled to be held in Zamboanga City (Pedro 2010). © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved 200 Beatriz P. Lorente Using the language the child understands not only airms the value of the child and his cultural heritage but also enables the child to immediately master the lessons in the school curriculum and at the same time facilitates the acquisition of Filipino and English that will also be taught in the irst language of the child. As the mother tongue is used in the classroom, the critical thinking and reading skills that are developed transfer to other languages when those languages become functional. (Gunigundo 2010) Arguably, such a stance could be seen as part of an advocacy discourse that is necessary in order to achieve multi-party and multi-sectoral support of mother tongue based education. However, in doing this, it may appear that the mother tongues are valuable only in so far as they help children learn English and Filipino. Also, the measure of success for MLE is still success in the formal education system and this emphasis may tend to ignore, overlook and crowd out the other beneits of MLE such as the legitimation of local knowledge and the empowerment of local communities (Hays 2009). As Tupas insightfully points out: “Local languages must not only be seen as pedagogically superior because of their cognitive potential for faster learning. More importantly, they must also be seen as useful elements in the development process” (2009: 30). With the MLE still in its infancy, the extent to which it can live up to its promise still remains to be seen, though there is perhaps no better time to change the terms in which the grip of English in the Philippines is sustained. For one, Benigno Aquino, the current president of the country, has signaled his support for the use of the mother tongues as a medium of instruction in his proposed program of education, albeit as a means of connecting to one’s heritage: I fully support the UNESCO-tried and tested formula on mother tongue instruction. From pre-school to Grade 3, we will use the mother tongue as the medium of instruction while teaching English and Filipino as subjects. From Grades 4–6 (7), we will increasingly use English as the medium of instruction for science & math and Filipino for Araling Panlipunan (social studies). For High School, English should be the medium of instruction for science, math & English; Filipino for AP, Filipino and tech-voc education. My view: We should become tri-lingual as a country. Learn English well and connect to the World. Learn Filipino well and connect to our country. Retain your dialect and connect to your heritage. (Aquino 2010)8 8. In its emphasis on the mother tongue as a means of connecting to one’s heritage, the president’s stance is conceptually diferent from MLE which emphasizes the cognitive advantages of the mother tongue as well as to a lesser extent, the grassroots development that can stem from it. His stance though may lead to similar forms of implementation. © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company All rights reserved Chapter 10. he grip of English and Philippine language policy 201 Conclusion In this essay, I have traced how the dominance of English in the Philippines has come about and been reinforced by the elite’s symbolic struggles over power and the country’s structural insertion as a source of cheap, English-speaking labour at the margins of the world economy. With the possible introduction of MLE, while the grip of English may remain the same in so far as the symbolic value of English has not changed, the move may address a fundamental issue: the distribution of important economic and symbolic resources. In the evolving nexus of interests that is the language policy of the Philippines, local voices may have inally carved out a space where the grip of English can begin to be contested. References 170+Talaytayan MLE. 2011. Accessed January 27, 2011. http://mlephilippines.org/. 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