Cinemalaya 2006

The Cinemalaya Film Festival is in UP Film Center in Diliman from July 31 to August 3.
3pm, 5pm and 7.30pm screenings. Try to catch them!

ANG HULING ARAW NG LINGGO
(The Last Day)
by: Nick Joseph Olanka
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Ang Huling Araw ng Linggo spans a week in a life of seven individuals with interconnected narratives. The film illustrates the interconnectedness of our lives, a cycle of random events in which the decisions we make are as important as the choices we didn't take.

BATAD, SA PAANG PALAY
(Batad)
by: Benji Garcia, Vic Acedillo, Jr.
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

A 14-year old Batad Boy, a high school dropout, is forced to sell produce in the Banawe market to augment the family income while his father pursues the philantrophic mission of repairing the rice terraces of adjoining Ifugao villages. Exposed to Western modernization in Banawe, the boy obsesses with owning a pair of rubber shoes that he does not really need. Upon possessing the long-desired rubber shoes, he attempts to leave his Ifugao roots and chase big city dreams.

DONSOL
by: Adolfo B. Alix Jr.
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Daniel, a Butanding Interaction Officer who accompanies tourists on whale watching expeditions and assists them in interacting with the sharks, is a broken hearted man who meets an older woman, Teresa, a widow fighting breast cancer. The two share their miseries and discover that they like being together. Will their newfound bond be strong or will it be blown along with the amihan wind which signals the end of the butanding migratory visit to the small town?

IN DA RED KORNER
( In The Red Corner)
by: Dado C. Lumibao and Bong Ramos
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Doring is a 24-year old girl who is engaged in a sport that is not common to Filipino women—boxing. This in her desire to alleviate her family from poverty which is slowly devouring them. Desperate and tired of living a miserable life and working in a palengke, Doring enters into amateur boxing in the hope of being discovered and go big time in the professional level. This is not just a fight for her dream but a battle of survival for her family.

MUDRAKS
(Mother)
by: Arah Jell G. Badayos and Margaret G. Guzman
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Inside the Fernando house, nobody talks. Lives are kept to themselves; problems are not shared; questions are not entertained. The people living inside it have become used to leaving everything unstirred especially Margaret, the mother of the home. To get to know her family, she snoops around - entering rooms, opening cabinets, reading journals she is not supposed to read.

ROTONDA
by: Ron Bryant
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Beginning at the break of dawn and ending the next morning, the story, set around a rugged city intersection, follows the path of a marked one-thousand-peso bill as it transfers from one character to another, returning to its originator in the end, blood-tainted. The money leads us to each of the five offbeat characters, all in desperate need of their soul’s redemption.

SAAN NAGTATAGO SI HAPPINESS?
(Where is Happiness?)
by: Florida Bautista and Real S. Florido
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Finding happiness isn’t part of Tikyo’s everyday plan. For him, at the age of 50, nothing is as simple as selling sorbetes, his only source of living. Everything’s just perfectly fine. Until, breaking news comes—his mother, whom he believed, for so long, was already in heaven, is still alive.

TULAD NG DATI
( Just Like Before)
by: Michael Sandejas
Finalist, Full Length Films Category

Tulad ng Dati starts in 2006. It revolves around the character of Jett Pangan who is nearing his forties. Jett has lost his passion for music and life and entertains thoughts of retiring from the band. On a fateful night, Jett is assaulted by a burglar and goes into a coma. He wakes up with no memory of his life after 1988. He remembers that he is 20 years old and is at the peak of his career with The Dawn. Not satisfied with how things turned out with his life, he tries to change everything back to to the way it used to be. The path he takes while finding his place in this strange new world proves itself to be a tough, emotional, and sometimes hilarious journey—accompanied by the celebrated music of The Dawn, both past and present.

I missed the SONA...

....because I had more important things to do than watch the un-real spectacle of the Chief of State spouting lies about the nation. Manuel gives a humorous blow-by-blow account of the events. I should've seen it, if only for entertainment value.

Break Time is Over

Some people spend an enormous amount of time gossiping about other people's faults and little gaffes. Sometimes in an entertaining and humorous manner, other times in a way that can only be described as malicious. Maybe they do so to escape their own personal demons. But me, I tend to brawl with my demons in a UFC no-holds-barred arena. I find that it takes all of my energies to fight myself, to right myself, to put myself on my own right path, once I identify it. Sometimes I wonder how the hell I got here. My boyfriend tells me, give yourself a break. But I have been given all the breaks one could want or need. So break-time is fucking over. Yeah? Yeah.

Top 10 Signs Y ou've Been Watching Too Much House MD

1. You come to believe that hyperintelligence is cool and hyperintelligent assholes cooler.

2. You philosophize about life more than usual. Little quips like "Truth begins in lies" begin to make sense.

3. You know that people lie in general, but you never really dwell too much about it 'til the end of Season 2.

4. You now know that bodily fluids are expelled from your oral cavity in three ways: it sprays if its from the stomach, you cough if its from your lungs and it oozes if its from your bowels. Vomit-laced feces. Yum.

5. You start thinking doctors are cool. And you wonder why you didn't become one. Then you remember you were the very last person in your sophomore class to prick your finger for that microscope experiment. You didn't even actually do it yourself, you had your groupmate do it for you.

6. Dr. House starts to remind you of your genius but highly flawed rockstar politics professor. You are drawn to how brightly they shine but remember how badly they burn.

7. You think David Shore must be God and Hugh Laurie Jesus.

8. You now know you can die from teeny tiny microbes or virus or bacteria or parasites or toxic and irradiated materials. You can die from almost any harmless-looking thing and increasingly become paranoid about what you touch, what you eat and drink, where you breathe, who you speak with...

9. You know what an MRI and a CT Scan are. You know what intubation, lumbar puncture and biopsy procedures look like even though you've never spent more than a total of 24 hours (tops) in a hospital in your lifetime.

10. You love having soon-to-be-doctors friends who are just a text away for geeky medical trivia.

Free Internet Connection

I would like to thank our Barangay captain for having a cellsite in his backyard. Also, thank you to one of my neighbors for having a wifi connection and(unknowingly) providing me free internet access. And lastly, I would like to thank my boyfriend for discovering said connection and getting me a card asap. Ahhh...the best things in life... :)

France, Football and Re-mapping Nationalism

I ask my class of 40 or so students, if given a chance, how many of you will you give up your Filipino citizenship? All but a couple raise their hands. Nationalism is something we Filipinos hardly ever relate to pride of place, or people or home. "Nationalism" is hardly ever something we exhibit overtly, not unless some of us reach a degree of popularity abroad, for, say, winning boxing matches or beauty pageants. Nationalism in this day and age seems passé. I think so too. But that doesn't mean Nationalism doesn't serve a very important function. It generates duties and obligations to a piece of land and space. It’s important in raising capital by way of taxes. It can make you commit absolutely illogical acts such as dying for you country.

I ask my students, now ok, so what nationality do you want to be? They want to be British or Canadians. Many want to be French. Now those seem to be a proud people. And they are. Or, they market themselves as such. The French are a proud people. But what most of us don't realize is that this pride has taken hundreds of years in the making.

First, let us be clear that “Nationalism" is a concept that traces its origins in a particular time and context. Nations have only been in existence for the last 350 years. The very first nations, as we know them today, were born in Western Europe and exported to the rest of the world through colonization and imperialism. The creation of a nation was a prerequisite to the creation of a State. States are the most successful political organization in modern history. After all, it is the construct with which all 6.3 billion of us frame our political, social, economic and cultural lives.

Nation and State are concepts that are often conflated, used interchangeably by many. But a nation is not necessarily a state. And a state is not necessarily a nation. A State is a distinct territory (land) with sovereignty (self-rule), a government and a people, recognized by the rest of the world as such. A Nation is a grouping of people who consider themselves a member of more or less the same socio-cultural unit. To illustrate, Israel is both a nation and a state. Palestine is a nation, but it is not a State because it neither has a territory to call its own, and neither is it recognized by the international community as such. There can be many nations within a State.

Obviously, not all nationalisms are created equal. After all, some nations are much older than others. Some nations have had the advantage of having been created in much longer span of time and were the results of perfectly natural social processes. France is an old nation. It created a single language, a single religion and even a single standard of measuring weight and length and such. France has had to eliminate all other differences within its territory. Maim, kill, suppress. After a while your people will feel they share a single destiny because they speak the same language in telling their stories. This "feeling" is strengthened as you wage wars that will further distinguish your people from others. If you are able to create empires that span the globe, then you've got to start believing you're something special.

Some nations are created out of thin air, proclaimed a “nation” on a piece of paper. Some nations were made on the whims of European cartographers divvying up the globe.

In this age of global migration, people, carrying with them pieces of their own nations can now uproot and settle in other countries. This is where “nationalism” becomes problematic. When you change nationalities, it is assumed you are now a firm believer of a new ideology, the set of values your new country holds dear. Carrying a new passport doesn’t automatically discard your old values, the ones you learned from birth. Like they say, you can take the Filipino out of the Philippines, but not the Philippines out of the Filipino. Even doubly problematic is when your allegiance to your new country comes into conflict with the old one, especially if these two share a troubled colonial past.

The World Cup is certainly one of those arenas where nationalisms are proudly worn on the sleeve. France recently placed second in the World Cup finals, playing with a starting line-up of mostly dark-skinned players, sons of migrants from North and West Africa as well as the Caribbean. I say this can only be a leap forward to harmonizing France's race relations. French nationalism has been undergoing a sort of overhaul in the last decade. The tensions probably reached an all-record high in the riots of August last year, when disenfranchised black and Arab youths set France's cities on fire. For a couple of hundred years, French nationalism was exclusively white and exclusively Christian. Now it must accommodate non-whites and non-Christians.

But just because France sends a “rainbow-colored” football team and small African countries such as Ghana reach the quarterfinals doesn’t mean there isn’t ignorance still. The ugly speculations (see below) regarding Zinedine Zidane’s expulsion at the nth hour Sunday night point towards the kind of crisis conflicting nationalisms and identities place on a globe in flux. Is he Algerian? Is he French? Is he French-Algerian? Is he French-Algerian whose family was a traitor to Algerian freedom fighters during the struggle for independence? Which makes him....more French and less Algerian? It is a conundrum.

Now imagine all those hyphenated Filipinos populating the globe. Heck, imagine yourself, right here, right now. Nationalism?!? Wuzat?

That Hard-headed Zizou

Wow. That was probably one of the most dramatic World Cup finals in recent history. We all witnessed that incomprehensible headbutt Zidane landed on Materazzi's muscled chest. People are wondering why in the world a seasoned footballer would succumb to his baser emotions and do such thing. Was it exhaustion? Was it frustration? Or was it something the Italian said? There are nasty rumors that Materazzi called Zidane a "harki," a term used for Algerians who fought for France against fellow Algerians during the colonial occupation. Yikes.

On a lighter note, Slate has an excellent dissection of what makes a perfect headbutt in football.

Super! Bulge :)

So. It takes a simmering sex god in azure tights and crimson undershorts to finally rouse me from my blogging stupor.

Over the last several weeks there have certainly been plenty of things to blog about; horrific and exciting personal experiences in abundance - including 3 harrowing LTO encounters, and certainly tons of bizaare political shenanigans. But a yummy 6'4 eye (nose, teeth, lips....) candy encased in blue wrapping has finally woken me up to blogging again. Sigh.

If you haven't seen or have no plans to see Superman Returns featuring a brand-new (and dare I say much HOTTTTTER) lead, I say go and indulge in this entirely "alien" sensual experience. The opening credits thunder the trade-mark taaan-ta-ta-ta-taaaaan....tan-tan-tan....taaan-ta-ta-ta-taaaaan. TAN-TA-TAAAAN and everyone in the cinema visibly settles down. They know they are in for a treat. Oh, and what a treat it is.

I don't really want to write a review ok? I just want to gush and moan about Brandon Routh. Sigh. Because there have been rumors that his "package" was digitally reduced, I paid an especially close attention to his crotch. But alas! His bulge was nothing if not modest throughout the film. I say, they fixed it not only to keep the audience from being unduly "distracted,"but more importantly, to keep all the females (and some males) from spontaneous combustion.

I'm not dead....

I promise to write again. Soon :-)

Life to the Fullest

I don't know why, but it seems the older I get, the more fearful I am of the world. I'll be 26 in a few short weeks and I know life sucks and can only get worse. "Life sucks" is so banally vague. But doesn't it? They say youth is wasted on the young, I say no. Youth has its place in your cycle of existence. Youth is recklessness and ignorance combined, and you can't possibly stay reckless and ignorant for life. Because if you do, then what does that make you? An idiot.

Because I am no longer ignorant, and was never quite reckless, then I am no longer young. I am old. Being old means seeing and realizing so many things despicable are out there. Being old means losing faith in others and in yourself. Being old doesn't quite sink in until you realize you're going to have to take care of your only living parent very soon. Your world flips on its head because in a few short years your mother, that being who has cared for you, sheltered you, put band aids on your wounds, will be your dependent soon. Its a scary, daunting thought.

They say live life to the fullest. I say, for us mere mortals, life can only be lived half-full. Because when you've lived life to the fullest, you can die. In the meanwhile, I have 40 more odd years to live each day as it drags on, filled with the banal and the mundane.

The Piano Teacher (La Pianiste)

Watching this film is not a bit like willingly inserting a sliver of wood under your fingernail then sitting back and stoically wait 'til it bleeds, hope that it bleeds. And when it does, willing the blood to seep out from under your nails and then marvel at the redness. Proof that you're human, proof that you're...

Oh wait, here's a better analogy. Watching this film is not a bit like discovering an injured bird on your window sill. It is evidently suffering and you are torn between saving it and hastening its demise. You feel sorry for it because it is broken and yet you wonder if it won't do you and the bird better if you would just leave it alone to die. It is, after all, just an animal. And you are human. Healing it or killing it. Which is more humane?

Oh crap. No, no, no. Watching this film is not a bit like wishing you knew more about Freud and psychosexual disorders. If there are such things. Wishing you had taken some classes in pyschology to better situate yourself in the mind of the protagonist and the filmmaker. What the fuck is this movie saying? A beautfiul, middle-aged piano teacher whose sexual perversions simmer underneath her icy-cool demeanor. Her perversions are symptoms of a seriously unhappy life.

You also wonder what it means to know who the fuck is Schubert and wish you knew more about German composers and classical music and sacrificing your leisure for greatness.

Fuck. I'm running out of analogies. Just watch it.

This is a deliriously fascinating film about brokenness and being human. With the coolness and precision of a surgeon, director Michael Haneke slices open your chest and dares you look inside. A looong mindfuck with no proper ending. Absolutely brilliant.

Save the Internet Campaign

The future of the Internet is being decided in US Congress. Because this is the way things work in the world we live in, news of Huge Telecoms winning their bid to set up tollbooths on the Information Highway, is really nothing if not predictable.

The US Congress has shot down the bill to preserve Network Neutrality, making way for the likes of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast to achieve their dreams of making more money by controlling the internet.

A U.S. House committee approved a bill Wednesday, under which Internet carriers would have a free hand to charge the likes of Google Inc., Yahoo Inc extra for faster delivery of services to consumers, bringing a two-tier Internet one step closer to reality.

From SavetheInternet Coalition:

What is this about?

This is about Internet freedom. "Network Neutrality" -- the First Amendment of the Internet -- ensures that the public can view the smallest blog just as easily as the largest corporate Web site by preventing Internet companies like AT&T from rigging the playing field for only the highest-paying sites.

But Internet providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to gut Net Neutrality. If Congress doesn't take action now to implement meaningful network neutrality provisions, the future of the Internet is at risk.

What is network neutrality?

Network Neutrality — or "Net Neutrality" for short — is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

Net Neutrality ensures that all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It's why the Internet has become an unrivaled environment for open communications, civic involvement and free speech.

Who wants to get rid of Net Neutrality?

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

What's at stake?

Decisions being made now will shape the future of the Internet for a generation. Before long, all media — TV, phone and the Web — will come to your home via the same broadband connection. The dispute over Net Neutrality is about who'll control access to new and emerging technologies.

On the Internet, consumers are in ultimate control — deciding between content, applications and services available anywhere, no matter who owns the network. There's no middleman. But without Net Neutrality, the Internet will look more like cable TV. Network owners will decide which channels, content and applications are available; consumers will have to choose from their menu.

The Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit. Without Net Neutrality, decisions now made collectively by millions of users will be made in corporate boardrooms. The choice we face now is whether we can choose the content and services we want, or whether the broadband barons will choose for us.

Since a huge slice of the Internet is American, the implications are global. If only I knew to what extent exactly. Anyone?

There Is No Spoon

Now that Sassy Lawyer and MLQ3 have blogged about the Filipino child punished by his French-Canadian school Ecole Lalande for using a spoon and fork instead of knife and fork, I predict there's going to be a firestorm of protest in the Pinoy blogosphere.

A quotable quote from the principal Normand Bergeron:

“I don’t necessarily want students to eat with one hand or with only one instrument, I want them to eat intelligently at the table. I want them to eat correctly with respect for others who are eating with them. That’s all I ask. Personally, I don’t have any problems with it, but it is not the way you see people eat every day. I have never seen somebody eat with a spoon and a fork at the same time.”

Which points to how insular and ignorant he is about the rest of the world eh?

If you want to give Monsieur le Directeur Bergeron a piece of your mind, you can e-mail him here:

direction.lalande@csmb.qc.ca

(Edited to add)

Some interesting (and hilarious comments) on the West Island Chronicle article written by Andy Blatchford:

Marnie Dideles:
"To make someone as young as 7 years old feel bad about his own culture is detrimental to his self-image and his perspective of his culture."

Jacob Chermak:
"One thing to know Mr Principal, the world is small and filipino community is tight. Rest assured Filipinos across the world will hear of this. Best of wishes Mr. ignorant coward."

K Lee:
"The principal's comment "I have never seen somebody eat with a spoon and a fork at the same time” shows all of us that he's buried deep in the Twilight Zone, probably beyond recovery since he's already past that "learning stage" that he's talking about."

Raul Debuque:
"I am especially disappointed that the school principlal, M. Bergeron, a French Canadian who no doubt fights every day to assert his heritage and culture, would then turn around and practice the same sort of cultural negation that French Canadians so vehemently reject. Shame. "

Geneviève Perchotte:
"On behalf of all us francophone Canadians, I apologize for M.Bergeron' treatment of you and hope that you can forgive him and not allow this to damage your life in any way. Especially, do not think that all Canadians are like this. "

Erik Kujala:
"I am also concerned for that. Mr. Bergeron obviously has a limited perspective on other cultures and what it means when people come to this country. Nowhere is it written that when a person comes to Canada they must give up their identity or their ways. That would be a tremendous loss for all of us."

Allan Jarina:
"Mr. Bergeron, you make me sick. You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you."

Rei Laue:
"I also felt slightly superior to my 45-year old Canadian classmate in a German language course when he admitted that he had never seen an Eierbecher (egg cup) in his whole life because they didn't use that in Canada. I smile as well every time my husband whispers "pocket billiards" whenever he sees a North American eating with only one hand on the table. "Taschenbillard" is the playful way of saying wanking in German, so Germans show both hands on the table when eating so that others don't have to guess what the hidden hand is doing...

...And to think this demonstration of racial superiority comes from someone who probably thinks an egg cup is a term that describes what he does with his other hand under the table while he's eating his dinner."

Alvin Chua:
"Um, I don't understand. Perhaps I'm just ignorant (being an uncivilized Filipino, heh) but what exactly is this singular eating implement? A spork? Are there pictures of it, that we may educate ourselves? (Sorry, but this just boggles the mind.)"

On Bilingualism

Blog entries come to me while driving. It's probably because I can best hear my "voices" in the solitary confines of the car. At times the dialogue begins with the opening sentence, a catchy phrase. Most times it starts with ideas and images in my head. I imagined writing this post in Filipino and found I couldn't. At best, I can translate after writing this in English. A select few are truly bilingual in this country. Those lucky enough to have had a private education, or those, like me, who are linguistically inclined.

It is normal, for the bilingual elite, to communicate in English. It becomes something of an anomaly when viewed by foreigners. In Europe some years back, a friend and I were speaking in a mix of English and Filipino when a Swede classmate approached and asked us why we were speaking in English. The Japanese were lumped together speaking Nippongo, the Koreans speaking Han, the Germans, Deutsche. And here are two Filipinos speaking English when there was, in her eyes, no apparent need. Why indeed?

The Bilingual elite will most likely speak English when speaking of "intellectual" matters, and when I say intellectual I mean all things pertaining to the expression of ideas. This is so because English is the language of the academe. Most everything we learned in formal schooling; ideas, concepts, scientific and mathematical formulae, are learned in English. We simply do not have the linguistic tools to express ourselves in Filipino.

Rarely is Tagalog ever used in intellectual, let alone academic, discourse. Except maybe in the deepest recesses of UP. I once attended a lecture by Bomen Guillermo delivered entirely in academic Filipino. It seemed he was speaking a foreign language altogether! I felt not a little ashamed that I could barely understand what he was saying.

It is normal for the educated elite to think in English. Some will think in English all the time, while others, like me, think and use different languages for different occasions. For me, Tagalog, Pangasinense, sometimes Ilocano, are languages at home and in dealing with the certain life experiences. When dealing with the "servile classes" (waiters, maids, sales persons, jeepney drivers) one speaks in Tagalog. When dealing with peers, with superiors, in business and government, one speaks English.

For a select few, English is the only acknowledged language. I have taught kids of this select few. Tagalog to them is a language foreign, never to be spoken. Should they deign to speak it, they do so with hesitance, straining their untrained palate to roll their R's and open vowels. Tagalog is a different world, evoking alien life experiences, totally separate from their own reality.

In this country, speaking good English, can mean many things. It can express belonging to a certain class, a certain socio-economic category. Even inflections and accents in speaking Filipino can signal different things. I was channel surfing last Saturday chanced upon this interview on Star Talk. A certain male celebrity was speaking with the trademark not-rolled R in "parang" and "like...like..." I distinctly remember this celebrity speak with a "jologs" accent not too long ago. I suppose, in his dealings with various people in the entertainment industry, he has learned to speak a certain way, to be perceived a certain way.

In this country, there is a hierarchy of languages. English comes first, connoting privilege, education and progress. Tagalog comes in second, evoking images of the underclasses. All other Philippine languages are a distant third, connoting idyll and backwardness. Among Filipinos these languages serve as barriers separating, not only life experiences and realities, but people. For a country searching for common roots and the idea of a single nation, would it not better suit our needs to do it in one language? Or at least, to destroy the hierarchies of the tongues we speak?

(I will valiantly try to translate this in Filipino. Coming soon...)

---------------------

(Edited to add: April 25 12:30pm)

Ukol Sa Bilingualismo

Ang mga tala sa blog na ito'y nangungusap sa akin habang nagmamaneho. Marahil ito'y dahil mas mainam kong naririnig ang aking mga "tinig" sa katahimikan ng loob ng sasakyan. Paminsa'y nagsisimula ito sa isang pangungusap o di kaya'y nakatutuwang habi ng mga salita. Inisip kong isulat ang talang ito sa Filipino, ngunit nagkulang ang aking kakayanan. Mas mahusay ko itong maisasalin na lang siguro matapos kong isulat sa Ingles. Kaunti lamang ang tunay na bilingual sa bayang ito. Yaong mga mapalad na nakapag-aral sa mga pribadong paaralan, at, tulad ko, yaong may kakayanan sa mga wika.

Normal para sa "Bilingual elite" ang mag-usap sa Ingles. Ang nakasanayan ay nagiging kataka-taka sa mata ng mga banyaga. Sa Europa, ilang taon na ang nakararaan, lumapit ang isang Swede habang ako'y nakikipag-usap sa isang kaibigan, sa saliw ng Ingles at Filipino. Tinanong n'ya kung bakit raw kami nagsasalita ng Ingles. Hayon ang mga Hapon, nag-uusap sa Hapon, ang mga Korean ng Koreano, ang mga Aleman ng Aleman. Heto ang dalawang Pilipinong nag-uusap sa Ingles ngayong, sa kanyang tingin, ay 'di naman kailangan. Bakit nga ba?

Ang Bilingual elite ay malamang na gagamit ng Ingles sa usaping "intelektwal," at sa aking pakiwari, ang intelektwal ay tumutukoy sa pagpapahiwatig ng mga ideya. Ito'y marahil ang Ingles ang wika ng akademya. Karamihan ng ating natutunan sa mga paaralan at pamantasan; mga idya, konsepto, mga formulang siyentipiko at mathematical, ay natutunan sa Ingles. Kulang ang ating kaparaanang linguistic upang maipahayag ang ating mga sarili sa Filipino.

Madalang na gamitin ang Tagalog sa mga talakayang intelktwal, lalo na't akademiko. Maliban na lamang siguro sa pinakaloob-looban ng UP. Minsa'y nakinig ako sa isang lecture ni Bomen Guillermo na kanyang inihayag ng buo sa akademikong Filipino. Tila wikang banyaga ! Nahiya ako sa aking sarili 'pagkat halos 'di ko mawari ang kanyang mga sinabi.

Normal para sa mga edukadong elite na mag-isip sa Ingles. Ang ila'y gagawin ito ng palagian, at ang ilan, tulad ko, ay nag-iisip at gumagamit ng iba't-ibang wika sa iba't-ibang pagkakataon. Para sa akin, ang Tagalog, Pangasinense, paminsa'y Ilocano, ang mga wika ng tahanan at ng ilang sitwasyon. Sa pakikipag-usap sa mga "uring nagsisilbi," (mga waiter, katulong, tindera, tsuper ng jeep), ang isa'y gagamit ng Tagalog. Sa pakikisalamuha naman sa mga kaibigan, katrabaho, mga boss, sa larangan ng komersyo at gobyerno, ang ginagamit ay Ingles.

Para sa maliit na mangilan-ngilan, ang Ingles ay ang nag-iisang wikang gamit. Nakapagturo na ako sa mga anak ng mangilan-ngilang ito. Ang Tagalog para sa kanila ay isang wikang banyaga, kailanma'y 'di na dapat bigkasin. Kung talagang kailangang gamitin, ito'y nabibigkas ng may alinlangan, ang lalamuna'y pilit na ibubulalas ang 'di nakasanayan. Ang Tagalog ay ibang daigdig na kumakatawan ng mga ibang karanasan, hiwalay at kaiba sa lawak ng sarili nilang ginagalawan.

Sa bayang ito, ang pagsasalita ng Ingles ay maraming kahulugan. Maaari nitong ipahiwatig ang pagiging bahagi ng isang uri o kategoryang sosyo-economiko. Pati ang mga paraan ng pagbigkas at pananalita sa Filipino ay nagpapahiwatig rin ng ilang mga bagay. Noong isang Sabado, habang ako'y palipat-lipat ng channel sa TV, napanood ko ang panayam sa isang artistang lalaki sa Star Talk. Napansin kong ang artistang ito'y para nang kolehiyalang magsalita - ang pagbigkas ng R tulad ng sa wikang Ingles na pinalabukan ng kay raming "like...like..." Matuwid kong naaalala na ang artistang ito'y dating nananalita ng may puntong "jologs." Marahil sa kanyang iba't-ibang pakikisalamuha sa mundo ng showbiz, natutunan n'yang manalita ng ganito upang ikubli ang kanyang pinagmulan.

Sa bayang ito, may bai-baitang ang mga wika. Nangunguna ang Ingles na nagpapahiwatig nga pribilehiyo, edukasyon at progreso. Pumapangalawa ang Tagalog na nananalamin ng kahirapan. Malayong ikatlo ang iba pang mga wikang Pilipino, nagpapahiwatig ng mabagal na saliw ng kanayunan. Ang mga wikang ito'y nagsisilbing balakid na naghihiwalay, 'di lamang ng mga karanasan at kamalayan, ngunit ng mga mismong tao. Sa isang bayan na patuloy pa ring naghahanap ng matibay na diwa ng isang bansa, 'di kayat' makabubuting gawin ito sa iisang wika? O, kung 'di man, ang buwagin ang pagbabai-baitang ng ating mga wikang gamit?

Podcast 12: Book Lust

On objects of my affection. Listen to this podcast here.