Supermaids, bow.

I attended one of Kritika Kultura’s lecture series today with Dr. Bea Lorente. She discussed how English as a modern language has become the ideal tool for every nation’s progression. Also, she discussed something about how English has become a necessity or minimum requirement for every Filipino household service worker a.k.a. maid to be able to work abroad. Lorente “introduced” the term Supermaid, a certificate the POEA requires for every migrant worker applying as a maid. And according to this insane certificate, Filipino maids must have this seemingly very ideal personality for a household helper. Among the requirements were having high proficiency in English and other languages, being able to fill out forms, understanding household communication well and maintaining good working relationship. I mean, do maids have to be highly efficient in English or to be multilingual in order for them to wash the dishes or clean their bosses’ asses? I admire OFWs and the work they do abroad, but to require so much from them and to advertise laborers like that is completely unacceptable. POEA seems like it has become the official agency for selling Filipina workers who are like Stepford wives. But what can I do? We owe the OFWs the stability of our economy. If it weren’t for their remittances which FYI covers 30% of our country’s GNP(?), we would have been experiencing every crisis the world has invented. Anyway, trivia: each day, there are 2700 Filipinos who leave the country for migrant jobs.

But the issue on the Supermaid wasn’t the only issue covered by the lecture. The more interesting debate brought up by Dr. Lorente was the real deal on Filipino being the national language. Remember in high school when we discuss the long history on how Filipino became the national language of the country and how other dialects like Bisaya and Ilocano fought against Tagalog? Well, it wasn’t really an issue on ethnicity or whatever nationalistic idea why these Filipinos from the Visayan and Northern regions tried so hard to win the spot for the national language. It was a battle for hierarchy. He who speaks Tagalog is considered a level higher than the one who talks in Bisaya or Chavacano. And you know what, it makes perfect sense. No wonder why people often associate dialects other than Tagalog to be the dialect of maids, drivers and other labor jobs. Media presents these dialects as languages as inferiors to Tagalog. And that’s also the reason why those people who are anti-Tagalog pursue so hard to work on their English. Did you know that Cebuanos, who are by the way Bisaya, are considered the highly proficient English speakers? Because they believe that in order to win over Tagalog, they have to master another language – English. So most likely if you find yourself anti-Tagalog, you are a pro-English. Moreover, focusing on English instead of Tagalog has been vastly expanding. This answers the query why Araling Panlipunan or Social Science is being taught in English instead of Filipino. According to House Bill 4701, all subjects except Filipino will be taught in English. That’s a very big step to a more English, less Filipino nation. You can just imagine the Bisaya and Ilocanos jumping for triumph. Apart from the issue on Tagalog, many scholars believe that linguistic nationalism is already obsolete. Meaning, to speak in Filipino no longer means you are being nationalistic. Language no longer indicates nationalism on the part of the person who speaks the “national language” since obviously, there is no longer any national language. English took over whatever Tagalog we have left, ate it all up and now it controls not only the Philippines but the rest of the world through what we commonly know as globalization. And so I begin to wonder, if language does not represent a country, what does? Is it the type of work the people do? Or the services the country offers? It’s a question of identity. If everyone else speaks in English, what good will that bring to the identity of a nation? Would there be equality?

It feels good to have the chance to attend lectures discussing things we don’t usually talk about and to be able to realize that there are people like Dr. Lorente who are capable of opening to everyone else issues we didn’t know existed. Not everyone would bother themselves with issues on language or the English language’s plan on world domination.