It is upsetting to read tweet comments reeking with ignorance over the linguistic rights of Filipino children (who are not native English speakers) promoted and protected by our constitution and international conventions,generated by the ongoing Senate inquiry on the implementation of the Mother Tongue Based Multi-Lingual Education, the core of the K to 12 law. The language parochialism of politicians, educators, and observers is nauseating as it reveals an antiquated Americanization mindset.

Language parochialism is the attitude that multilingualism is not useful and may even be harmful. Parochialism is costly- intellectually, economically and politically. It sets the stage for poor learning outcomes and low-grade skills set, destruction of cultural identities, and preservation of societal and economic inequities for generations. The results of Resident Schools in North America attest to this. Our education system, which was set up by the Americans, is also afflicted with it. And the roots of parochialism may be traced to William McKinley’s benevolent assimilation proclamation, which justified the acquisition of the Philippine Islands at the turn of the 20th century by the Americans. It is a mindset with the implicit assumption that the Philippines will become a state or at least remain a US territory.

The US national motto – E Pluribus Unum- one out of many, is a complex philosophy. While Americans hope to forge one nation from many peoples and cultures, the society it aspires to create is supposed to protect individual rights to maintain differences (Judith Lessow-Hurley, The Foundations of Dual Language Instruction,©2000, p.147). The stress of McKinleyan assimilationism is on unum and is best seen in the analogy of a melting pot (Gleason, 1984).It is a process of ethnic and racial fusion, whereby a person was expected to Americanize- to emerge looking, sounding, and acting like a white person of northern European background. And in the process, something in the person’s cultural identity irretrievably melts away as we become Taft’s little brown brothers.

Fr. John Schumacher SJ (A Hispanized Clergy in an Americanized Country, 1990) said that the model of modernization increasingly adopted by Filipinos as the 20th century progressed was culturally American, and English speaking (although Schumacher did not say what levels of English proficiency Filipinos had). There was even an active movement for statehood. This attitude may explain why the 1935 Constitution is silent on the role of local languages under the American flag.

But by 1946, it was clear that the Philippines will not be the 51st state of the US. Filipinos were granted independence under a republican system patterned after the US model. It is unfortunate that the 1973 Constitution missed the political paradigm shift of sovereignty which we did not have in 1935, and remained quiet on the role of Philippine local languages. This gave space for the Education ministry to institutionalize a nonsensical bilingual language in education policy using two languages, Filipino and English, that were not first languages of most Filipinos (Ministry Order 74 Series of 1974).

The value of local languages is embodied in Section 7 Article XIV 1987 Constitution which was non-existent in the Constitutions of 1935 and 1973. In addition, it is state policy under Art II to value the dignity of every human person, promote and protect the youth’s physical, moral, intellectual, and social well-being (Sections 11, 13, & 22). These are the guiding principles of RA 10533 or the K to 12 law- it is pure common sense to use a language spoken by the child at home as medium of instruction in his or her schooling. Research confirm that it delivers better learning outcomes that is correlated with critical thinking and high-grade skills set. These characteristics possessed by a voting population obliterates abominable political dynasties.

Beginning in the 1990s, the US emphasis has moved to pluribus- a pluralist view suggesting that it is possible to be unified while still maintaining diversity (Lessow-Hurley, 2000). It is best understood with the analogy of a salad bowl wherein all ingredients make contributions to the whole, but each one maintains its own distinguishable identity. From the melting pot-Americanization mindset, it is imperative to have a 21st century multilingual salad bowl mindset.

Atty. Magi Gunigundo is a former lawmaker, civil law instructor, and author of law books. He is also an education reformer and an advocate of anticipatory governance.