by DAVAO TODAY
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Indeed, it sounds like a frivolity for Mr. Virgilio Almario to advance a proposal that is meant to change the spelling of Pilipinas toFilipinas. Of all the urgent matters and issues that need to be addressed, here comes a very inconsequential proposition that wouldn’t at all touch the daily lives of our people.
by DON J. PAGUSARA
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
But in the 1970s, at the height of the student movement to which I belonged, I learned about the history of the Aglipayan Church or the Philippine Independent Church founded by Gregorio Aglipay and Isabelo de los Reyes. I found out, to my remorseful realization, that it was the Church of the Filipino revolutionaries!
by DON J. PAGUSARA
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
It is good and salutary that there are cultural guardians among us. We have people who have built fortifications to protect our language from being ripped off and blown away, demolished and trampled upon by ruffians and scoundrels among us.
by DON J. PAGUSARA
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
My linguistic homecoming has made a remarkable impact on my growth as a celebrator of Lumad literature. It couldn’t be otherwise. The noble expression and stories of Mindanao’s Lumad peoples can only be written and told in the language most akin to their experiences and reality.
by DON J. PAGUSARA
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Unknown to the Filipino people, their love for and devotion to the English language carries with it an adoration of all things and stuffs associated with the language. Truly, we have fallen into the cultural trap of loving everything English. Or everything that comes with the language of the Americans.
by DON J. PAGUSARA
By DON J. PAGUSARA
Davao Today
Maybe, the deplorable circumstance of history, making us enslaved to a foreign language and culture, would hold sway for many generations yet to come. And this certainly constitutes one of the fundamental elements that hold back our movement forward to progress, especially to freedom from poverty.