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Language preservation warriors win on this one:


NCCA junks WIKA, Almario from language & translation committee

The National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) has disqualified Wika ng Kultura at Agham, Inc. (WIKA) headed by Virgilio S. Almario from the coveted National Committee on Language and Translation (NCLT).

It can be recalled that Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino (KWF) Chairman Dr. Ricardo Ma. D. Nolasco filed a petition to declare as null and void the NCLT elections, citing grounds of (1) failure to communicate with stakeholders, and (2) gross under-representation of the sector and mass disenfranchisement.

Non governmental organization Save Our Languages Through Federalism Foundation Inc. through its representative for the National Capital Region (NCR) Santiago B. Villafania has intervened supporting Nolasco's petition and "adopted the arguments of the KWF calling for a failure and/or nullification of election for non-fulfillment of membership qualifications and for not being registered with SEC for one and a half years."

"There is gross misrepresentation of the ethno-linguistic peoples of the Philippines in the NCLT committee as is clear from the KWF protest letter that lists the interlocking directorates of Tagalog writers that control the committee. In particular, the non- Tagalog Peoples of the Philippines have been left without a valid voice. This gross misrepresentation of our peoples could be regarded as an outright violation of the United Nations declarations on Human Rights, in particular linguistic rights, to which the Philippine Government is signatory to. In brief, the Philippine Government has an obligation to adequately represent all its ethno-linguistic peoples in its governmental bodies such as the NCCA," Dr. Jose Ma. Eduardo Dacudao, SOLFED president said.

Source