Radio and Ilonggo culture

originally written on January 5, 2008

I love radio specifically AM band. I love listening to it early morning, afternoon and late night, schedule permitting - I wish I own one. Radio is more relevant than television as shown by the coverage of a raging fire in Trinity Christian School in Villa Angela last night (January 4, 2008). It is also a great medium for preserving local culture – kinablit and composo are still well and alive in radio. Radio as an important medium will never die out in this country – after all poverty is still widespread in this country. Poor people are the main audience of it. People who can’t afford TV can definitely afford a transistor radio. Trust me if its news or current events one doesn’t miss anything just by listening to radio. In fact, it is more informative than the boob tube although the facts are sometimes distorted or colored by the bias of the commentator. I don’t know the extent of “envelopemental journalism” in local radio but if I don’t concur with what the broadcaster is saying I just turn the dial elsewhere. I really think it is widespread for the last elections many so-called journalists were exposed as paid hacks.

Slowly, Ilonggo culture is disappearing as the younger generations are equating it with lameness strongly influenced of course by their white masters – the Americans. The kinablit program in Bombo Radyo is the one of the very few programs I could listen to traditional Ilonggo ambahanon (song) not even on Imeem with the exception of Max Surban’s Turagsoy. Our culture is being buried deep into oblivion. Worse, it is being willfully erased in our psyche. Thankfully, some AM radio stations are fighting hard to keep the Ilonggo way alive. We need a vibrant Ilonggo pop culture to sustain it. To be honest, there isn’t much love towards anything Ilonggo in Negros Occidental. It is different in Iloilo though – the home of the Hiligaynon language. The trendsetting Talibong1 of the Benjo and Tonton fame is a student in Central Philippine University in Iloilo. His Hiligaynon version of 300 and Troy became an instant Youtube hit and made our language cool again. Ilonggo Pride or IL Pride made Ilonggo hiphop possible and inspired others to do the same.

Yeah Right!

Are other Philippine languages really dying? Some people will of course doubt it either from ignorance or arrogance. However I have more news clips:

“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 policy, are not being patronized by their own speakers.”

“Two, National Statistics Office surveys show 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 people finally approaches zero, as is the trend at present, their absolute numbers will also decrease, eventually to extinction if we do nothing now.

“Three, minority people are losing territory fast to the center’s ethnolinguistic group. For example, Puerto Princesa in Palawan, which used to speak Cuyonon, no longer does, and the Cuyonons [a Western Visayan people] are becoming confined to a small group of islands off Palawan and will inevitably die out should we do nothing. Same story for the rest of the native Palawan, Mindoro and Zam-bales languages.

Likewise, the rich array of native languages of Romblon (including Romblomanon, Unhan, Asi, Odiongon) are dying out. Transplanted Tagalog is fast replacing the indigenous tongues of Davao and Cotabato. Even traditionally big and influential ethno-linguistic people such as the Kapampangans of Pampanga and the Bicolanos of Camarines Norte are in the process of getting wiped out.”

SOURCE

The Philippine government has a great habit of NOT listening to peaceful advocacies like this. It prefers someone to bomb something in order to get its attention and support for example the rebels in the south and bandits-cum rebels.....Please hear us out! I do hope peaceful advocates of change should be heard.

HILIGAYNON IS A LANGUAGE

Let me correct this propaganda. I have heard people erroneously call Hiligaynon a dialect. NO! Hiligaynon is proudly a language. It is in the same league as Spanish, French and English. It is not a variation of another language.
Let this piece from the Defenders of the Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago explain what is going on in the Philippines:

This forum is the "home court" of DILA members based in the Philippines, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, Dubai and other countries.
DILA, which stands for Defenders of Indigenous Languages of the Archipelago, is a union among patriotic Pangasinenses, Pampanguenos, Bicolanos, Warays, Karay-as, Ilongos, Cebuanos, Ilocanos, and other ethno-linguistic groups in the Philippines who feel aggrieved by the language policy of their country, and whose passion in life centers around promoting their dear languages (and other aspects of their culture) and saving them from extinction. Their related activities include studying their languages and doing language translations, interpretations and comparisons in a scholarly way. They work for the intellectualization of their languages and aim to have them be made languages of instruction and regular subjects in the school curriculum. Love and pride for their languages motivated them into forging this grand alliance. All members of minority groups, as well as exceptionally sympathetic Tagalogs, are strongly encouraged to join us and participate in our intellectual discussions. We are here to destroy the growing Tagalista mentality that is marginalizing all native languages to no end. "United, we shall overcome!"
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DILA/

I join them in the massive fight against marginalization and cultural extinction of non-Tagalog Filipinos.