Did Rep. Gorriceta apply arm-twisting tactics on Sanitarium?

“Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.” Nelson Mandela

By Alex P. Vidal

IT appears the feud between Iloilo second district Rep. Arcadio “Cadio” Gorriceta and officials of the Western Visayas Sanitarium (WVS) in Sta. Barbara, Iloilo developed only after one camp refused to follow the wishes of another camp over a WVS project implemented by the Department of Health (DOH).

Since a standoff is unacceptable, Gorriceta is now calling for the ouster of WVS chief, Dr. Annabelle de Guzman.

Gorriceta’s move, however, was viewed by some observers as an “arm-twisting tactic” only because he failed to get what he wanted.

As a member of the legislative branch, Gorriceta is supposed to enact laws, not to interfere in projects pushed by the executive branch.

By calling for De Guzman’s ouster only because she crossed his path, Gorriceta, a best friend of Senate President Franklin Drilon, is showing who's the boss; he could be guilty of influence peddling or “waslik poder.”

The Liberal Party congressman is flexing his political muscles.

TEACHERS

We were told since elementary days that the teachers are our second parents.

Therefore we should be kind to them; we should accord them the love and respect we give our parents.

We can forget the names of some of our relatives but not our teachers.

Gorriceta must have forgotten this fundamental ethos when he allegedly belittled the teachers by comparing them to officials of the WVS during the executive committee (EXECOM) of the WVS meeting in Sta. Barbara, Iloilo early this year.

The spat with the WVS officials occurred when Gorriceta reportedly pushed for his recommendation to change the orientation of the WVS’ P25-million hospital ward extension project when he barged inside the EXECOM meeting.

The Daily Guardian, which interviewed Gorriceta over Aksyon Radyo on Saturday, reported that the neophyte solon reminded the officials the extension project must take into consideration the P137-million Sta. Barbara-San Miguel access road project and the presence of an ongoing residential project.

When hospital officials did not accept the congressman’s suggestions, Gorriceta allegedly called them “close-minded and stubborn.”

The ward extension has been approved by the DOH central office and that WVS is just the implementer, asserted De Guzman.

INCIDENT

TGD reported October 13 that the EXECOM incident report also quoted Gorriceta as saying that the WVS officials are “like public school teachers who just follow all the whims and wishes of their superiors.”

“He further accused the EXECOM members of being afraid of ‘imperial Manila’,” the EXECOM resolution added.

Gorriceta admitted to TDG he may have said those words but explained the context of his statement saying, “I think I said that because they always refer everything to Manila.”

Gorriceta further told TDG he does not believe that his statement was insulting to the teachers as he observed that teachers are always hesitant to speak up on their needs before their superiors.

“They are always overwhelmed by their officials. That’s also the same impression I got from the WVS officials. They kept on saying that it’s with Manila already. What kind of justification is that? Just because Manila said that the rear part of the hospital ward will face the main road, you will just follow it?” said Gorriceta as quoted by TDG.

The congressman further told TDG the incident report is dubious and self-serving on the part of the hospital.

Is it the real McCoy in the prophesy?

“The earth is attempting to rid itself of an infection by human parasite.” Richard Preston, The Hot Zone

By Alex P. Vidal

WHEN he was still alive sometime in 2002, Dr. Rodolfo Jara-Mesa of La Paz, Iloilo City, handed me a photocopied article from the Reader’s Digest that predicted the coming of a “serious” and deadly disease which he feared might decimate humanity “in the near future”.

I asked him if he or the article was referring to the HIV disease, a virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). 

Dr. Jara-Mesa flatly said no.

Too bad I could not anymore find that article.

Like malaria and tuberculosis which nearly erased humanity some 600 to 800 years ago before medicine came up with a breakthrough to neutralize them in the 20^th century, Dr. Jara-Mesa believed scientists would soon be able to discover the antidote to AIDS.

What could be that “serious” disease the article was referring to, doc?

Dr. Jara-Mesa admitted he had no idea.

The article, he explained, based the purported prophesy on the rapid population growth, poverty and lack of access to medicine, especially in famine-stricken countries like Africa and other so-called Third World countries.

VIRUS

When Dr. Jara-Mesa passed away in 2003, Ebola, otherwise known as Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), was already wreaking havoc in Sudan and Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Dr. Jara-Mesa had no inkling that 11 years later, Ebola would take the entire universe by storm and is, in fact, now threatening to wipe us out—unless a vaccine will soon be developed to arrest it and prevent a feared epidemic.

Ebola actually was first detected in 1976 and the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported 1,716 cases since that year until 2013.

Ebola became a global sensation in the heels of ongoing and the largest outbreak in West African Ebola outbreak, which is affecting Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Nigeria.

It has reached the United States and Canada, which is now moving heaven and earth to prevent the disease from invading the North America.

More than 4,000 cases have been reported worldwide as of press time, and the number is feared to increase, cautioned the WHO.

FACTS

These are the key facts of Ebola, according to the WHO:

-Ebola Virus Dease (EVD), formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, is a severe, often fatal illness in humans.

-The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-to-human transmission.

-The average EVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks.

-The first EVD outbreaks occurred in remote villages in Central Africa, near tropical rainforests, but the most recent outbreak in West Africa has involved major urban as well as rural areas.

-Community engagement is key to successfully controlling outbreaks.

Good outbreak control relies on applying a package of interventions, namely case management, surveillance and contact tracing, a good laboratory service, safe burials and social mobilization.

-Early supportive care with rehydration, symptomatic treatment improves survival. There is as yet no licensed treatment proven to neutralize the virus but a range of blood, immunological and drug therapies are under development.

-There are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines but 2 potential candidates are undergoing evaluation.

SYMPTOMS

Do we feel some of the symptoms provided by health authorities?

The incubation period, the WHO explained, that is, the time interval from infection with the virus to onset of symptoms is 2 to 21 days.

Humans are not infectious until they develop symptoms.

First symptoms are the sudden onset of fever fatigue, muscle pain, headache and sore throat. 

This is followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, symptoms of impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding (e.g. oozing from the gums, blood in the stools).

Laboratory findings include low white blood cell and platelet counts and elevated liver enzymes.

Let’s hope the article given by Dr. Jara-Mesa 12 years ago had nothing to do with Ebola.

Judging from the way our health authorities worldwide panic, we hate to think that Ebola is the real McCoy in as far as the alleged prophesy in the Reader’s Digest article is concerned.

Ilonggo advocates renew calls for federalism

“Minority peoples must never be treated as tolerated guests but as fully equal partners in a Federal Society.” Swiss Federalism

By Alex P. Vidal

ILONGGO lawyer Leopoldo “Pol” Causing, a political science professor from the West Visayas State University (WVSU) in La Paz, Iloilo City, has been an avid advocate of federalism since time immemorial.

In public market coffee shops, hotels, schools, media symposia, Causing, a brilliant analyst of political and social events in the country, speaks passionately about the need for our system to shift to federalism.

Causing believes that graft and corruption in the legislature will be nipped in the bud once our government structure has been federalized.

“We no longer need to suffer from the rapacity of our over-fed senators,” bewailed Causing, one of the original pillars of the Iloilo Press Club.

The renewed interest on federalism snowballed mostly outside Metro Manila where strong sentiments can be felt in the heels of the “pork barrel” imbroglio involving mostly members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“That is to be expected,” Dr. Jose Palu-ay Dacudao, an Ilonggo brain surgeon now based in Butuan City and advocate of federalism, told us on several occasions.

INTEREST

“Interest in federalism has been waxing and waning intermittently perhaps for the past three or four decades, especially among the educated and the learned who sincerely would like to see permanent structural changes in Philippine society for the better,” explained Dacudao.

“And why not? After all is said and done, any honest intelligent educated person will have to agree that the only possible governmental system overhaul that can provide lasting improvement for Philippine society is federalism.”

In fact, the single biggest move for federalism in post Spanish Philippines has occurred relatively recently, Dacudao reminded us.

Last December 2005, a Presidential Constitutional Commission, that was expected to recommend federalism, submitted its draft to the congress.

To the most severe disappointment and frustration of pro-federal people in the Philippines, the ConCom draft contained not a single federal provision; and worse, it was actually anti-federal, said Dacudao.

Now that moves for federalism seem to be in the air again, it might be a good thing to review what happened.

Below is an analysis by Dacudao, who named his advocacy to “Save Our Languages Through Federalism”:

Trouble with the Concom Draft: There are serious and troubling criticisms to the ConCom draft.

1.The ConCom draft describes a Unitarian Unicameral Parliamentary Government that could approve federalism only after it has approved the application of 60% of Philippine provinces to become ‘territories’.

There are 72 provinces, and 60% of that is 43.2 provinces.

Therefore, 44 provinces have to repeatedly apply for ‘territory’, and all of them have to be approved by the Manila-based Parliament.

Knowing Philippine politics, if a Provincial Governor is at odds with the Prime Minister, or if Manila-based politicians sense that part of their budget would be taken by the province (or other such similar conditions), an application probably would not be approved.

Even if Manila were to approve only one provincial application per year, it would take 44 years before the Philippines could legally qualify for Federalism, and Manila would still have the final say. At present, the legal process to Federalize the Philippines consists of a single legal step-propose a Federal draft to Congress, which approves with its changes (or does not approve), followed by ratification of the citizens of the Philippines of the final draft in a plebiscite.

Far from its claim of promoting Federalism, the ConCom draft imposes 44 additional legal steps requiring the approval of Manila, which may or may not give it, every step of the way.

IMPOSE

2.The ConCom draft allows the Parliament to impose its laws over a ‘territory’, thus making it no different from a province.

3.In the ConCom draft, there is no fiscal autonomy for the provinces (or ‘territories’).

Manila collects the taxes, and ‘automatically’ allocates a budget for each province, IRA-style.

We already know from present IRA controversies that this ‘automatic’ allocation is not automatic at all, and is a main source for provincial Manila-dependent politics and corruption.

As can be seen above, the Con Com draft, far from promoting federalism (in fact it has no federal provisions at all), makes Federalism practically speaking impossible in the Philippines. And this, even after most of the province-based NGO’s consulted by the ConCom expressed their favor for Federalism.

In retrospect, that the ConCom draft was in practical terms anti-Federal should have been expected.

The ConCom was led and peopled mostly by known Tagalistas.

A movement should never allow itself to be hijacked by its ideological opposition; it’s the equivalent of ideological suicide.

Modern federalism in multi-ethnic Europe and India has almost always been motivated primarily not by economic reasons but by the just libertarian aspirations of their diverse ethnolinguistic peoples. Ethnic diversity is a keystone of Federalism.

The ConCom draft never even mentions the ethnolinguistic groups of the Philippines, as if they did not exist.

That reveals just how un-federal its commissioners were.

‘Stop idiotizing our youth’

“There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.” Sophia Loren

By Alex P. Vidal

Federalism and native languages advocate Dr. Jose Palu-ay Dacudao is up in arms against the Department of Education’s (DepEd) 2005 Basic Literacy Learning Material (BLLM).

He pointed out that the crux of the problem is DepEd’s materials written in ‘Filipino’ (a honey-coated term for the Tagalog language in order to make it psychologically acceptable to non-Tagalogs) that are being taught to our children right here right now.

“In my opinion, the writers of most of these materials had acquired books in English, presently the universal language of science, learning, and commerce (just as Latin was for nearly 2000 years), and then endeavored to erase the Greco-Latin terms (which they probably thought were indigenous English words), replacing them with invented Tagalog terms,” explained Dacudao.

If you are a parent concerned with your children’s education, Dacudao, a critique of the Tagalista orientation of Department of Education materials, recommends this article for you.

Our modern society’s current idea of higher education began in Greece. The two most notable schools were the Academy founded in 387 BC by Plato and the Lyceum founded in 335 BC by Aristotle. They offered advanced studies in Philosophy, which at that time encompassed a very broad field which also delved into Mathematics, the Physical Sciences, and the Biological Sciences. The language that was used in such Greek schools was Greek.

ROMAN

The budding Roman Republic had always admired Greek culture, and may have patterned the Roman Senate from the democratic rule of the free classes in Greek city states. From 146 BC, when the Romans defeated Corinth, until 31 BC, when the Romans defeated Cleopatra’s Hellenistic Egypt, Rome took over what remained of the Greek territories. Instead of destroying Greek culture, the Romans enthusiastically adopted it. It became common practice for the Roman aristocrats to acquire highly favored Greek slaves in order to personally tutor their children in the Greek language, classics, and philosophy. These Greek-loving aristocratic Roman children would normally grow up to be the new leaders of Rome, and would naturally continue patronizing Greek culture. Greek-type learning institutions flourished in the ensuing Roman Empire, the most famous of which is the Library of Alexandria in the 4th century. Instruction naturally was in Greek or in Latin that borrowed many of its technical terms from Greek.

From the remains of Greco-Roman civilization, modern Colleges and Universities arose in the 12th century. Universities were founded in Italy, France, England, Germany, Poland, and Bohemia. They started as groups of students, usually of the same ethnicity, that would band together in the towns and cities were prominent learned men taught. The resulting community would become known as a collegium (Latin ‘society’).

By the latter half of the 12th century, the University of Paris in France had become the leading institution of learning in Europe. Other Universities at that time became famous for specializing in Law (University of Bologna in Italy), and Medicine (the University of Salerno in Italy).

Liberal arts was the common curriculum in most of these Universities, and consisted of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (music, astronomy, geometry, and mathematics). After completing these, some students proceeded to study such specialties as theology, law, or medicine.

HISTORY

Why are we reviewing this history?

Because the medium of instruction of these Universities was Latin (that borrowed heavily from Greek), the universal language of science, learning, and commerce in Europe.

It took the Greeks and the Romans hundreds of years to develop a technical vocabulary for Philosophy, the stem subject of all our modern subjects. Just as the Romans adopted the Greek vocabulary into their medium of instruction, so did the ensuing civilizations that inherited the Greco-Roman culture adopt the Greco-Latin terms in their own institutions of learning.

Note that the French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles did not dare to change the Greco-Latin terms of Natural Philosophy. They merely borrowed and added on to this vocabulary, the additions also being in Latin as a matter of standard.

The idea of inventing a non-existent German word for an idea that was already known by its Latin name, in order to prove that one was a patriotic German for instance, was totally ridiculous in the minds of these educators and the institutions that they represented. The purpose of these institutions was not to transform a student into a fanatical nationalistic German but into a learned person. The Germanic languages at that time (including English) simply did not have the terms for the intricate subjects that had directly arisen from the older Greco-Roman learning institutions.

Modern English, although a Germanic language, uses a scientific vocabulary that is practically all Latin derived. Take away all the Latin terms of a typical textbook of science in English and we would end up with nothing or nonsense.

And so we come to the crux of the problem in the Department of Education materials written in ‘Filipino’ (a honey-coated term for the Tagalog language in order to make it psychologically acceptable to non-Tagalogs) that are being taught to our children right here right now. In my opinion, the writers of most of these materials had acquired books in English, presently the universal language of science, learning, and commerce (just as Latin was for nearly 2000 years), and then endeavored to erase the Greco-Latin terms (which they probably thought were indigenous English words), replacing them with invented Tagalog terms.

What comes out is nonsense.

LITERACY

Just take this example from the 2005 Basic Literacy Learning Material (BLLM) of the Department of Education which tries to explain the nutrient cycles.

There are four basic nutrient (Latin ‘nutrire’) cycles (Latin ‘cyclus’ from the Greek ‘kuklos’) in the ecosystem (Greek ‘oikos’ plus Latin ‘systema’ from the Greek ‘sustēma’):

1.The carbon (Latin ‘carbon’) cycle

2.The nitrogen (Latin ‘nitrum’ from the Greek ‘nitron’) cycle

3.The oxygen (Greek ‘oxus’) cycle

4.The hydrological (Greek ‘hudōr’) cycle

There is also an energy (Greek ‘energeia’) flow, which was wrongly described as a cycle in the BLLM. There is no such thing as an energy cycle in the ecosystem.

Among others, the BLLM uses the following vocabulary in order to try to explain these fundamental ecological concepts, to quote:

1.Ang Pag-ikot ng Tubig, Hangin, at Enerhiya sa Kagubatan

2.Pag-ikot ng tubig

3.Pag-ikot ng Hangin

4.Sikat ng Araw

5.Ikot ng Sustansiya

6.Sustansya sa lupa

The above explanation is nonsensical. How could one possibly describe the carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen cycles in the ecosystem as ‘pag-ikot ng hangin’? In English, this would translate as the nonsensical and misleading ‘air cycle,’ or worse as the ‘whirling of the wind.’

As mentioned, not even the French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles, who after all started the first modern Universities, dared to replace the Greco-Latin terms with non-existent words.

One could go on and on with such ridiculous examples of what would happen if one were to erase the Greco-Latin terms in a Science subject, but I would like to be brief.

RETAIN

The most reasonable thing to do is to simply retain the original Greco-Latin terms for most of the science-related vocabulary. The French, Italians, Spanish, Germans, English, and Poles did it, and it worked; we now have our modern Colleges and Universities.

For instance, one could simply translate the Nitrogen Cycle into Siklo de Nitrogen, Siklo sg Nitrogen (Hiligaynon Visayan), Siklo ka Nitrogen (Karay-a Visayan), Siklo sa Nitrogen (Cebuano Visayan), or even just use the term Nitrogen Cycle as it is. The Latin derived ‘Siklo’ is retained.

One could also simply use the English language (which already has incorporated Greco-Latin terms) as the medium for teaching the physical and social science subjects. The Universities did use Latin for hundreds of years. The scientists of the 16th to early 20th century who essentially gave us modern science and technology were all educated in Latin, and mostly wrote in Latin. None of them insisted on using say German or Italian in their works, even if they were German or Italian. The proof of the efficaciousness of their education is all around us; all our modern sciences and technologies are derived from their works. The Tagalistas who insist that we have to teach our Sciences in Filipino-Tagalog in order for us to develop good scientists are propagating an ideological lie that is idiotizing our youth.

In my opinion, these are the serious problems with the BLLM.

1.In some areas, the tone to my mind is condescending, as though the recipient ethnic people are ‘primitives’ who need to be taught the proper things in life by their superiors in the government.

2.The tone does not respect the diversity of our ethnolinguistic peoples, or even places our diversity in a bad light. This should be corrected. It must be remembered that the Philippines is signatory to UN resolutions that say we should respect the identities of our ethnolinguistic peoples.

3.As is clear in the above example, there are serious errors in the contents itself of the learning material.

In my opinion, the fundamental problem of the above problems is the Tagalog Nationalism of Tagalistas. Among others, this ideology presupposes that one has to be a good Tagalog in order to be a good Filipino.

IDEOLOGICAL

Since the problem is ideological, it becomes attitudinal. It creates an attitude that tries to erase all words that are perceived to be English in origin and replace them with Tagalog. This is quite silly if only because the English themselves probably thought it was silly too, for they adopted Greco-Latin terms wholesale into the English language; and so what deluded Tagalistas are really erasing are Greco-Latin terms that have been accepted internationally by learned people for hundreds of years.

I even suspect that Tagalista educators are not really interested in making our youth learned, but in transforming them into good Tagalogs. Consequently, there is a lack of interest in the accuracy of the contents of learning materials. Why strive for excellence in the contents if what we are really interested in is teaching all Filipino children Tagalog? Learning is secondary; be a good ‘Filipino’ (AKA Tagalog speaker) first. Thus, there is a propagation of teaching materials whose contents are full of errors; that tend to intellectually bankrupt our youth, or actually teach them outright errors.

Why our languages must be preserved

“An academic dialect is perfected when its terms are hard to understand and refer only to one another.” Mason Cooley

By Alex P. Vidal

I met Dr. Jose Palu-ay Dacudao, a surgeon now based in Butuan City, through our friend, Willie Branum of Jaro, Iloilo City sometime in 2007.

Willie, a political strategist who worked with Sen. Serge Osmena and former President Fidel V. Ramos, said Dacudao is an advocate of the preservation of our native languages.

“Dr. Dacudao does not believe that other dialects are inferior to Tagalog,” Willie said.

Cebuanos, Ilonggos, Ilocanos, Warays, among other natives in the Philippines should be proud to use their dialects except when they communicate with people who speak Tagalog in Metro Manila.

When you are in Rome, act like a Roman.

When you are in Metro Manila, speak the dialect of those who live in Manila, the doctor was trying to imply.

These are the reasons why our languages must be preserved, according to Dacudao:

1.Unity in diversity vs. Unity in uniformity. It is the basic morality of our cause that we deem the diversity of Creation as natural and good.

SCHOOLS

Philippine schools for the most part teach only two languages, ‘Filipino’ and English, Filipino because of a nationalist ideology rooted in the idea of unity in uniformity, and English because it is beneficial to the economy being the international language of the business world and a necessary language for income-rich overseas workers. What about the survival of our rich array of native Philippine languages? History had repeatedly shown that in multi linguistic areas, any government policy that officially uses only one or two languages eventually drives the neglected languages into extinction (as for example in the Roman Empire whose policy of using only Latin in government communication killed of most of the languages used around the northern Mediterranean, or in the Caliphates whose policy of using only Arabic killed off most of the languages in Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula).

We are against any national policy that tries to impose unity in uniformity, such as ‘isang bansa isang lahi’, because pursued to its logical conclusion it means killing of all our ethnolinguistic peoples except one. We are many peoples, and always have been, not one people. There are at present 159 ethnolinguistic peoples in the Philippines according to the Summer Institute of Linguistics, with 3 or 4 having become extinct in the past few generations. Our peoples have existed since before the Spaniards’ arrival, even before there was a Philippines, and do not owe their existence to the Philippines. There must be respect and equality among our peoples for us to make a strong country.

DEFINES

Language defines a people. A Visayan who cannot speak a Visayan language, even if he has been born and grew up in the Visayas-Mindanao area where there have been Visayans for more than a thousand years since the area first came under the influence of the Sri-Visaya Empire, is not a Visayan. Such a person has been cut off from an ancient cultural identity that remains one of the oldest in the world. Or how can a person be an Ilocano if he cannot speak it? Without language, we have no culture, no identity, and we are nothing.

No one can artificially create an ethnolinguistic people. Only the Creator can. The survival of our ethnolinguistic peoples in a Creation of diverse beauty is not even a matter of right or wrong but a matter of existence or oblivion. A hundred years from now, any debate as to whether the existence of an ethnolinguistic people is right or wrong when it has already ceased to exist is completely inutile because what is being discussed is already dead. Likewise, any discussion on so-called ‘ancestral lands’ loses its essence when the ethnolinguistic people involved has ceased to exist because of the death of its language. For example, a Manobo is by definition   as a person whose native language is Manobo. So how can you talk of ‘saving’ the ancestral lands of Manobos when the Manobos have been obliterated with the death of their language? How can you talk about a people’s ancestral lands if the people do not exist?

Will you uniformize your faces with that of your neighbors and seatmates just because an ideology says we all would look nicer if we had the same face? Of course not, as we were created with different faces and personalities. Similarly with languages, will we uniformize all Philippine languages just because an ideology says we ought to? Of course not, instead we must accept that there is something wrong with that ideology, even if it has been taught to us since elementary school by a system that does not respect its own peoples.

ARGUMENT

The basic argument for preserving an ethnolinguistic people is the same as that of preserving a species, and stems from a conscious decision to stand for the diversity of Creation. A renowned paleontologist once said: I can see and study the fossil bones of now extinct birds, but never will I see the colors of their feathers nor hear the sweetness of their songs. Costumes and artifacts are dead things we keep in museums and show to tourists, but the living soul of a people is its living identity carried by its language. A government that makes a minority people wear native costumes and dance around in front of TV cameras for the sake of attracting tourists but does not teach its language in schools is utterly hypocritical and exploitative. If we are really sincere in helping an ethnolinguistic people to survive, we must teach their language in the schools of their traditional areas. Once a people is dead our descendants will never see the bonds that they formed, nor ever hear the melody of their tongue.

There is another argument for preserving the diversity of Creation, albeit a more practical and perhaps selfish reason. We can never know the possible future uses of a specific species or language. A plant that seems to have no practical uses now may suddenly be the source of an important antibiotic in the future.

EXAMPLES

As examples of the use of a specific language:

1. Some languages, which are intrinsically difficult to learn, can form the basis for codes. During World War II, the Americans suddenly found Navaho (a native North American tongue spoken by the Navaho people) a useful language in creating a code that the Japanese never broke, because Navaho is an intrinsically difficult language to learn and no Japanese knew Navaho.

2. Some languages, which are intrinsically user-friendly, can form the basis of a trade or scientific language in the future if the need arises. A few examples: One, Latin is intrinsically easier to learn for a non-native speaker than English, mainly because English has so many irregular verbs. Two, almost any Philippine language is intrinsically easier to learn for a non-native speaker than any Chinese language because of the tonal characteristic of Chinese languages, wherein differences in pitch distinguishes different meanings in what are otherwise the same words. Three, some Philippine languages are more user-friendly than the ‘national language’. For example, the simple conjugation pattern of the Negros dialect of Hiligaynon [almost all verbs being conjugated by ‘nag’, ‘naga’, ‘mag(a)’ and ‘gin’, ‘gina’, ‘un’ in order to denote past, present, and future tense] makes it much easier for an outsider to learn than ‘Filipino’.

3. Some languages have intrinsic value as a tourist attraction because of the attractive melodious quality of their intonation. For example, many people like to hear French, Spanish, and Italian because of the musical quality of their intonation. Among Philippine languages, almost every outsider gets enchanted by the singsong characteristic of the Ilonggo-Capiceno dialects. One of these dialects (Ajuy) may be a candidate for the sweetest sounding tongue in the world (yet it is unrecorded and unprotected, spoken only in a small area, and liable to go extinct anytime).

2.   Tagalogs vs. Tagalistas

The Tagalogs are an ethnolinguistic people, who have the right to preserve and develop their language. In the same context, so are the other ethnolinguistic peoples in the world. For example, the Kapampangans are also an ethnolinguistic people, who have the right to preserve and develop their language. Tagalogs and Kapampangans are equal, and are equal to the other Philippine ethnolinguistic peoples. The State should not institute laws and practices that will make one of them in social majority over the rest, as this will mean that the rest will become social minorities and second class citizens. More seriously, such a discriminatory policy eventually pushes the neglected languages into extinction.

Thus we are not against Tagalogs as an ethnolinguistic people. If by a twist of history, the Tagalog language becomes endangered sometime in the far future, the successors of SOLFED will surely come to their succor. On the other hand, Tagalistas are different. Tagalistas desire to spread the ideology of Tagalog nationalism, unity in the uniformity of the Tagalog language. Tagalistas do not have to be Tagalogs themselves; there are many Visayan Tagalistas for example, native Visayans who adhere to Tagalog nationalism.

IDEOLOGICAL

Tagalistas are our ideological enemies who do not respect the language rights of the peoples of the Philippines and who, if they have their way, will kill off all the other ethnolinguistic peoples of the Philippines in the name of their perverted sense of nationalism.

3. Language vs. Dialect. Is Filipino a separate language?

Dialects are mutually intelligible versions of a language and cannot exist outside the context of a language. For example, Batangueno and Bulaceno are mutually intelligible tongues, and thus are dialects or versions of the same language, which we call Tagalog.

Similarly, Cebuano exists as several dialects. Thus Cagayan Cebuano and Boholano are clearly different in accent, vocabulary, and idioms, but are mutually intelligible, meaning their speakers can understand each other without previous language lessons. Thus, Cagayan Cebuano and Boholano are dialects of the same language, which is called by linguists as Cebuano.

On the other hand, no Tagalog dialect is mutually intelligible with any dialect of Cebuano. Thus Tagalog and Cebuano are two separate languages, and co-equal to each other.

All international linguists (including the linguists of the highly regarded Summer Institute of Linguistics in the Philippines ), adhering to international standards, agree that Filipino is a Tagalog dialect. Filipino is mutually intelligible with all Tagalog dialects and mutually unintelligible with all non-Tagalog languages. Given the differences in vocabulary, grammar, syntax, idioms, conjugation patterns, and even accent and intonation that make each language unique, it is impossible to create a Filipino from all the Philippine languages without retaining each component language’s unique identity. Unity in diversity means giving freedom to the peoples that these languages define to preserve and develop their own languages. Unity in uniformity means killing all of them except one, whether that language is an existing one or an artificial one.

DYING?

4.  Are our languages really dying? Yes.

One, there is a dearth of literature and official use of the provincial Philippine languages. Many of these languages do not even have a written literature, and are not used in government and schools in their own territories. Residents can hardly read and write in their own language. New songs, movies, TV shows, essays, poems and books are not being composed in the provincial languages, and the few that are being made, because of the minority status attached to them by state policies, are not being patronized by most of their own speakers.

Two, National Statistics Office surveys shows that every Philippine ethnolinguisitic people is decreasing in percentage of the Philippine population, except the one that speaks ‘Filipino’ as its native tongue. When the natural birth rate of these peoples finally approaches zero, as is the trend at present, their absolute numbers will also decrease, eventually to extinction if we do nothing now.

Three, related to the theme above, when the center’s ethnolinguistic group reaches half of the Philippine population, which is fast becoming a reality, it will be very difficult to change the Constitution into one that protects the languages of the minorities because they will simply tend to get outvoted.

Four, minority peoples are losing territory fast to the center’s ethnolinguistic group. For example, Puerto Princessa in Palawan, which used to speak Cuyonon, no longer does, and the Cuyonons (a Western Visayan people) are being confined to a small group of islands off Palawan and will inevitably die out should we do nothing. Likewise, the rich array of native languages of Romblon (including Romblomanon, Unhan, Asi, Odiongon) are dying out. There are numerous other examples.

BANALITIES

5. Banalities and bogeys of Tagalistas.

A. Filipino is not a Tagalog dialect. Wrong. It is. This had been answered above. Tagalistas often use this bogey, honey-coating one Philippine language (Tagalog) as ‘Filipino’, in order to justify imposing monolinguistic uniformity in a way that avoids hostile reaction among the non-Tagalog peoples.

B. We need ‘Filipino’ as a national language because we are one nation. There are three models that refute this banality.

One: It is an empirical fact that the USA does not have a national language (because any national language in the minds of the founding fathers of the USA infringes on an even more fundamental freedom, that of the freedom of speech and expression), and each local State is free to choose its official languages, or none at all. Thus there is no legal barrier to, say, the teaching of Spanish or a Native American language like Navaho. Many such native languages in the northern American continent, and also in the State of Hawaii , are now being taught in the schools, and as a result their native speakers are fast increasing in numbers. This clear-cut teaching of the minority languages in American schools has saved their peoples from extinction.

Two: Many countries with a keener sense of justice have multiple official languages, in recognizance of their native peoples. For example, India has almost 20. Switzerland has 4. Etc… Why can’t we?

Three: Many areas of the world, including pre-WW II Philippines , use a neutral language as a common means of communication for its leveling effect. (A neutral language is an outside language that is not spoken as a native language by any of the ethnolinguistic peoples in a common area.) Tagalistas always insist that we need one common national language in order to communicate with each other, and this is simply false. It is an empirical fact that the peoples of the Philippines have been communicating with each other for more than 300 years before there was a national language. How did 20th century Filipinos communicate before WWII? (It was ironically the Japanese who actually popularized ‘Filipino’ in Philippine schools in an effort to wean us off from English; and not surprisingly, Tagalog nationalists like Laurel and Recto were accused of being Japanese collaborators.) We used English, which happened to be the language of the American colonizers but which also fortunately happened to be the international language of Science and Trade, and multiple Philippine languages. If you were an Ilocano and went to trade in Cebu , you quickly learned Cebuano, and so on. Filipinos, including Tagalogs, respected the local culture of the region that they went into, by learning the native tongue. The usage of a neutral language like English also made for a ‘leveling effect’ among Philippine languages; not one was in social majority over the rest. (Today, in many multilinguistic areas in Africa and Asia, English and French are being used for their leveling effect, thus protecting the status of smaller ethnolinguistic peoples who would otherwise be pushed into oblivion had a neighboring tongue been imposed on them. Because there is no indigenous ethnolinguistic people that speaks English or French in these areas, use of these neutral languages places all of the native peoples in a linguistically equal level, and affords protection for the smaller groups.) Did using English as a common tongue make the Philippines poor? Obviously not; and we were more economically well off at this period. The peoples of the provinces also took pride in their local languages, and thus their ancestral identities, which made it more difficult for the center to step on their economic and political rights.

PATRIOTIC

C. To learn English is to stop being patriotic. Again, false. English is the international language of Science and Trade. There have been precedents. Before English, Latin was the international language of Science and Trade for perhaps 1500 years. Before Latin, it was Greek. Science classes were often taught in Latin until the early 20th century. The great seminal works of Science, including Newton ’s Principia Mathematica and Linnaeus’ taxonomic naming of various species, and many early medical books were in Latin. Newton was definitely a patriotic Englishman, but in order to communicate to the rest of the Scientific world, he used Latin without a qualm.

D. The ‘Filipino’ that is being rammed into the minds of all Filipino children is easy and convenient to learn, as evidenced by most Filipinos having learned it. This is twisted reasoning. Everyone who has gone under the Philippine’s Educational system knows ‘Filipino’ not because it is easy and convenient to learn, but precisely because it is being taught in the Educational system. Any language taught to elementary and high school children as an academic subject will be learned by them. Furthermore, the reason why the national media is in ‘Filipino’ is because everyone has been forced to learn it by an Educational system that flunks you if you don’t. Going to the role of Devil’s Advocate, even if we accept Unity in Uniformity, and ease of teaching is the basis for teaching a national language, the present ‘Filipino’, which is a Tagalog dialect, should not be the language being taught in schools, because there are other Philippine languages that are more user-friendly and easier to teach and learn.

How Visayan patriots won our freedom

“The Party is in control of all information and revises history, even yesterday's history, to reflect their current version of events. Winston is very much aware of this because it is his job in the paradoxically named Ministry of Truth to change the records of history. He cannot ignore what he remembers: Oceania was at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia yesterday, and not vice versa. If anyone else remembers differently, they certainly will not say so.” (Encyclopedia Encarta review of George Orwell’s classic novel ‘1984’)

By Alex P. Vidal

OUR former columnist in the Sun Star Iloilo, Dr. Jed Pensar, once exhorted his fellow Ilonggos to “forget not how Visayan patriots won our freedom.”

Pensar reminded us: “What is to be told is a true history of bravery, heroism, and patriotism.”

He narrated a story that in the latter part of 1896, Visayan revolutionists led by Francisco del Castillo, Candido Iban, Gabriel Alba, Ruperto Arce secretly started to organize a mass uprising against the Spaniards in the province of Capiz (which at that time consisted present-day Aklan and Capiz provinces).

On 17 March 1897, General del Castillo with about a hundred armed men entered Kalibo poblacion in order to ask for an audience with Municipal Captain Juan Ascarraga. The Spanish opened fire at them. 
The first battle to liberate the Visayas from Spain had begun. General del Castillo bravely led the way riding a white horse in front of his troops, and was shot dead by a sniper. Colonel Candido Iban, his second in command, was captured on his way to Kalibo.

On 19 March 1897, Colonel Ricardo Monet, commanding officer of the Spanish in the Visayas arrived in Kalibo in order to reinforce the Spanish garrison. 
He proclaimed an amnesty to all armed revolutionaries. Fifty men gave themselves up in good faith. Instead Colonel Monet had 19 of them shot on 23 March 1897, and then had their bodies paraded in Kalibo plaza as an example to what would happen to rebels. 
The 19 Visayan martyred patriots were Colonel Candido Iban, Benito Iban, Angel Fernandez, Canuto Segovia, Catalino Mangat, Claro Delgado, Domingo de la Cruz, Francisco Villarente, Gabino Sucgang, Gabino Yonsal, Isidro Jimenez, Lamberto Mangat, Maximo Mationg, Roman Aguirre, Simon Inocencio, Simplicio Reyes, Tomas Briones, Valeriano Dalida, and Valeriano Masinas.

ORGANIZE

Other patriots in Capiz continued organizing for the cause of independence. On 4 May 1898, General Esteban Contreras, Colonel Pascual Barza, Captain Alejandro Balgos, Captain Ramon Contreras and their troops attacked and drove out the Spanish forces in Pan-ay Capiz. 
The Spanish however counter attacked and after a battle lasting 4 days defeated the revolutionaries who retreated to the swamps of Pilar. Pan-ay town was then burned down by the vengeful Spanish and 12 of its citizens were executed.

In December 1898, the Spanish finally evacuated Capiz province after they lost a fierce battle with a battalion of troops under the leadership of General Esteban Contreras and Colonel Pascual Barza, and under the field command of Colonel Juan Arce in Pilar town.

Meanwhile on 21 September 1898, another band of patriots led by General Leandro Fullon, Pedro Ledesma, Silvestre Salvio, Ruperto Abellon, Angel Salazar, and Don Esteban de la Rama launched a freedom movement in Inayawan, Pandan, Antique. They soon raided and captured the town of Pandan, and then occupied Culasi the next day. 
The Spanish forces in Culasi were led by Lt. Agustin Alcayre and Sgt. Juan Espino, but their Visayan guardia civil subalterns rebelled on their way to Tibiao, killing Sgt. Espino and wounding Lt. Alcayre. They then presented themselves to General Fullon in Culasi, who reorganized and trained them.

On 29 September 1898, a skirmish between the Spaniards and Fullon’s men in Bugasong resulted in the death of a Spanish officer, Lt. Game. 
Afterwards, the patriots had to retreat back to Culasi because of superior Spanish firepower. The Spaniards under the command of General Brandies soon retook Culasi. 
However, on 20 October 1898, the Visayan guardia civiles under Pfc. Marcelino Eping mutinied and killed their Spanish officers in Culasi, and General Brandies was forced to retreat to Bugasong. Next day, Pfc. Eping presented himself to General Fullon along with 190 of his men.

General Fullon finally attacked San Jose on 23 November 1898. The Visayan patriots proved victorious and next morning formally occupied San Jose.

Elsewhere in Panay Island, on May 1898, the last Governor General of Spain in the Philippine Islands, Governor General Diego de los Rios (who was also a military General before his appointment as Governor General) arrived in Iloilo. In an effort to stem the Visayan advance, he offered to expel abusive Spanish friars, disperse the guardia civil, and even dangled the possibility of Independence. 
In order to show his sincerity, he created a Council of Reforms. However, most of the Visayans by then no longer desired merely reforms, but outright liberty. The Visayans in Panay had already made plans for a general revolt with General Martin Delgado as Commander in Chief.

TEMPORARY

A temporary government supposed to represent the whole Visayas was assembled in Santa Barbara Iloilo on August 1898. The following officers were elected:  Roque Lopez (President of the Assembly), Vicente Franco (Vice President), Venancio Concepcion (Secretary of Finance), Ramon Avancena (Secretary of State), Jovito Yunsay (Secretary of Justice), Julio Hernandez (Secretary of War), Fernando Salas (General Secretary). 
A military Department was also organized with the following officers: General Martin Delgado (Commander in Chief), Perfecto Poblador (General of the Army for Concepcion and the adjacent towns), Pascual Magbanua (Administrative Officer of the Military); Angel Corteza (Commander of the Southern zone); Adriano Hernandez (Commander of the Northern zone); Fermin Rivas (Commander of the central zone).

Before then, Martin Delgado had been appointed by Governor General de los Rios as a captain in the Sta Barbara volunteer militia, which was organized by the previous Spanish Governor General (Basilio Agustin) in order to contain the Visayan military gains. 
The patriotic Delgado however secretly worked for the Visayan instead of the Spanish cause, organizing for an armed rebellion against the Spanish. 
Several Visayan Generals conferred (among them Raymundo Melliza, Pablo Araneta, Adriano Hernandez, Pascual Magbanua, and Angel Corteza), and chose Delgado as “General en Jefe de los Tropas del Ejercito Libertador de Visayas y Governador Politico-Militar”.

Notice that General Delgado’s title clearly indicates that he was head of troops in the Visayas. Nothing is mentioned of Aguinaldo or any subservience to the Tagalogs who were then waging their own revolution against Spain, a war that the Tagalogs never won. 
In accordance with the pact of Biac-na-bató, of 14 December 1897 between then Governor General Primo de Rivera and Aguinaldo, Aguinaldo and his staff went into voluntary exile in Hong Kong for amnesty and money, while the Spanish authorities promised reforms within three years. I will say the obvious thing, that Aguinaldo and the other Tagalog leaders accepted grease money from the Spanish, bailing out in a war they could not win. 
Tagalista historians tend to say Aguinaldo was nobly planning to turn traitor to the Spanish by buying arms with this grease money, but in my opinion, personal benefit was really what was foremost in his mind at that time.

JOYFUL

On 17 November 1898, before 3000 joyful residents of Sta Barbara Iloilo, the Visayan Leaders and Generals proclaimed Independence. However, by itself, it would not have amounted to much. 
After all, any interested group of Visayan patriots could today go to Sta Barbara plaza and proclaim Independence from Manila, and even if they had an audience of 3000, it would be more of a symbolic rather than a politically concrete act.

Let us point out that Aguinaldo and the Tagalog revolutionaries did what was fundamentally the same action in Malolos. General Emilio Aguinaldo was proclaimed President of the first Philippine Republic during the ratification of the Malolos Republic Constitution and its inauguration in Malolos, Bulacan on 23 January 1899. 
No doubt it was a symbolic act of great significance to the Tagalogs fighting against Spain, but fact number one is that no country in the world recognized this proclamation. Fact number two is that the Tagalog revolutionaries (although with a cause as just as ours in the Visayas) never won their war against Spain. 
On the other hand, we Visayans won!

After a series of battles (wherein General Roque Lopez and Colonel Quintin Salas figured prominently), by 15 December 1898, a Visayan military regiment (under the field command of Lt. Agustin Solis) had cleared Jaro of Spanish forces. General Delgado then transferred his headquarters to Jaro, Iloilo.

On December 23, 1898 Diego de los Rios, the last Spanish Governor General of the Philippine Islands formally surrendered to the Federal Republic of The Visayas (supposed to represent the Visayas-Mindanao area), symbolically relinquishing his sword to the Visayan forces. On December 25, the Visayans held a triumphal march to Plaza Libertad and proclaimed Independence.

(Note that our patriotic forebears completely understood the implications of Federalism and openly advocated it in the society that they were planning to build. 
The use of the word ‘canton’ indicated that they at least partially desired a Swiss-type of Federalism, which is technically probably more of a more devolved Confederation.)

After much blood, sweat, and tears, Visayans finally won the war for Independence.

Earlier, on 5 November 1898, the victorious Negros Visayans, after a series of military victories in both Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental provinces, proclaimed Independence in Bago Plaza. 
Next day, on 6 November 1898, Don Diego de los Rios, the last Governor-General of Spain in the Philippines formally signed a document of surrender to the Independent Republic of Negros revolutionary leaders (General Aniceto Lacson - President, and General Juan Araneta - Secretary of War) in Bacolod.

Negros historians honor this event as ‘Sinco de Noviembre.”

(Why were the Visayans successful in their struggle against colonial Spain compared to the Tagalogs?  In my opinion, there were probably two main factors. One, the Visayans did not allow the kind of murderous internal factionalism that plagued the failed Tagalog revolution, which among others resulted in the deaths of Bonifacio and Luna, to dominate their movement. 
When it was apparent for example that Captain Delgado was the most qualified in leading the Visayan army, the other Visayan leaders simply cooperated in appointing him as the commanding General of the troops. 
Second, the accounts of Spanish-led troops regularly defecting to the Visayan side (Captain Delgado himself could be regarded as a defector) indicate that the Visayan army in short order had evolved into a body of trained professional soldiers. 
When the Spanish concentrated most of their remaining troops in Panay, what they faced was not a rabble of untrained recruits, but professional Visayan soldiers who had defected from Spanish garrisons and the guardia civil driven by dreams of independence. 
On the other hand, it is possible that the Tagalog army was mostly made of hastily recruited troops from the peasantry, who lacked training in soldiering. 
In brief, the Tagalogs who worked for the Spanish as soldiers and guardia civil remained mostly loyal to Spain; while the Visayans defected en masse to the Visayan cause. There is the implication that most of the Visayans in general were more patriotic than their Tagalog counterparts.)

SURRENDERS

Until today, these formal surrenders by Governor General de los Rios to these two cantonal governments have never been repudiated. 
This leads to a fascinating view of the treaty of Paris, wherein Spain ceded the whole Philippine Islands to the USA for $20-million. 
The treaty of Paris was officially consummated and became legally binding on 11 April 1899, after the surrender of the Spanish to our two Visayan Governments. 
Since you cannot sell what is not yours, and the Visayas-Mindanao area had already been passed by Spain to the jurisdiction of these Governments, then it would follow that only Luzon had been ceded to the USA by Spain.

This Treaty was the legal basis upon which the Americans formed their own colonial Government in the Philippines. Eventually this Government, through continuous legal processes, gave way to the present Manila-based Unitarian Government of the Philippines. 
From this point of view, the present Unitarian Government of the Philippines is derived via continuous legal processes from the Treaty of Paris.

The treaty of Paris is therefore invalid with respect to these Governments. One could therefore take the view that these governments are still legally legitimate. 
This could imply that the Manila-based Tagalista-oriented Unitarian central government of the Philippines in Visayas-Mindanao is an Occupational Government, which ultimately originated from an invalid Treaty of Paris.

Mga Kasimanwa, this is the way we should be telling our story to the Visayan youth! Yet what does the educational curriculum from Manila enforced in all Philippine schools mention of our efforts to achieve our freedom? Nothing! History as taught in our schools is the history of the Tagalog Revolution against Spain. 
It is not even as good a story as ours, as the Tagalogs never won, and is severely tainted by ruthless infighting, dictatorship, the acceptance of Spanish grease money and bail-out to Hong Kong, and the murders of Katipunan Founder Andres Bonifacio and General Luna by Aguinaldo. 
While Aguinaldo was advocating a formal dictatorship on his part, the Visayans were advocating Federalism. From a certain point of view, there is nothing to be proud of in the story of the failed Tagalog revolution.

INDEPENDENT

To recap, we Visayans had established two Independent cantonal states by 1898 against the might of a European colonial power, a first in the history of archipelagic Asia. We should be standing proud! Instead our general populace at present knows nothing of these. 
It is not our people’s fault because our educational curriculum is totally controlled by Manila-based institutions, which enforce their own version of history. Our fault is that we take the Unitarian system imposing such slanted history on us standing down.

We could still change this erasure of our own history. In Federalism, which the Visayan patriots mentioned above envisioned and openly advocated, the local state controls its educational curriculum. 
Under the present Unitarian system, Manila has total control over what is being taught to our children. Our patriotic forebears fought for Federalism and sacrificed their blood for it. Let us not fail them! (Main source: History of Panay Copyright 1973 by Felix Regalado and Quintin Franco)