The Role of Education in Resolving the Issue on Language and Culture in Philippine Education

Philippines is said to have diverse culture.  Language and culture are sometimes barriers to educational development.  What then should be the role of education in resolving the issue on language and culture in Philippine Education?

The role of education in resolving the issue on language and culture in Philippine Education is to serve as a guiding light in giving the relevance or significant value of language and culture.  As Samovar, Porter, & Jain (1981) emphasize that culture and communication are inseparable because culture not only dictates who talks to whom, about what, and how the communication proceeds, it also helps to determine how people encode messages, the meanings they have for messages, and the conditions and circumstances under which various messages may or may not be sent, noticed, or interpreted... Culture...is the foundation of communication.

The role of education serves as an instrument of change. Educated persons should understand their positions as members of both a local community and the world community and they must believe that their lives can make a difference especially when they give due  importance to their diverse culture.

Education is also fundamental not only to the transmission of culture but to preparing the ground for its continuous renewal. Learning is more than the assimilation of knowledge. It is knowing how to create new knowledge ... and the true purposes of doing so. Skinner was right when he said that "Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten". It is in this sense that education represents empowerment. By promoting creativity and humane values, education becomes the ally of cultural responsiveness, which is itself the key to positive relations between cultures. UNESCO is committed to preserving and protecting what its Constitution calls "the fruitful diversity of cultures". One reason for doing so is that cultural and linguistic diversity represents a vital resource, a source of human enrichment. Each culture or language system constitutes a unique mode of interpreting or relating to a world so complex that the only hope of knowing it or dealing with it is to approach it from as many perspectives as possible. At the same time, culture is essential to human identity and therefore to human dignity. At the heart of so many of our educational and social problems is the loss of cultural identity that gives special value and meaning to life. As Carlos Fuentes so aptly put it : "culture is a sea-shell in which we hear voices of what we are, what we were, what we forgot and what we can be". Without the sea-shell, young people have great difficulty in finding themselves and finding their way. If we wish to build positive intercommunity relations, we must start by protecting and promoting cultural identity.

The concept "culture" as cited in R. A. 7356, which has been translated in Filipino by the Committee on Language and Translation, has five characteristics that constitute its principles: 

(1) Culture is a right; 

(2) Culture expresses the national identity; 

(3) Culture is independent, dynamic, progressive and pro-people; 

(4) Culture is of the people and therefore the national cultural policies and programs to be formulated are pluralistic, democratic, free and liberative; and 

(5) That culture is for the people. 

Section 7 of R. A. 7356 makes the Filipino citizen, responsible for the preservation of the national historical and cultural heritage and its indigenous traditions.

The concept "culture" then as characterized in R. A. 7356, using the Bierstedt model (The Social Order, R. Bierstedt, 1970) has three main elements: 

(1) The ideas, beliefs, attitudes of the people as national community, which include their scientific knowledge and beliefs; their religious beliefs; their myth, legends, folk literature, superstitions, riddles, proverbs and sayings, literature, philosophy and such others;   

(2) Their norms or ways of doing, which include those as described by the Constitution; laws, rules and regulations, credo, customs, habits, rituals, ceremonies, and modes; 

(3) The material, or natural resources they have, which include natural resources, flora and fauna, material wealth, infrastractures, technology, artifacts, works of art, and the like. 

Philippine Culture is a humanizing culture, a culture of generally being for others such as indicated in terms like "Kapwa Tao" (fellow human being), "Tao po;" (introducing one's self at anothers house), "Tao ko" (my human being, husband, as the wife calls him), or  in the saying, "Madaling maging tao, mahirap magpakatao:"It is easy to become a person, it is difficult to become a human being."

The various ethnolinguistic communities, numbering more than 76, through their folklores, riddles, proverbs, sayings, legends and myths, are enriching and enriched as the national language propagates them.

The three main elements of culture--ideas, norm and resources--are also to be found in the 11 basic needs--food, water, shelter, clothing, livelihood, education, health, power, mobility, recreation and leisure, and ecological balance. These basic needs are articulated, acquired, sustained by processes of communication through languages.

Republic Act 7356 calls for helping develop Philippine culture and the Arts in an atmosphere of unbridled creativity and artistic freedom. Language and culture - inseparable - are considered processes for national development.

The relation of Language and Culture assumes cogency as Filipinos continue to celebrate the Centennial of Philippine Independence and try to better their lives, their economic, political and social culture. This cogency is underscored by present moves to improve the education delivery system. As a national community, we are enriched by the overlays of western and other cultures in the fabric of our historical heritage, but because we indigenize these overlays, it might take some time before the basic characteristics of Filipino culture concept are studied.

Language - the national language, Filipino, in particular - when culturally enriched by regional and sub-regional languages of various Filipino ethnolinguistic communities through its intellectualization, preserves national identity, even redeeming this from its inchoate political, economic and social environments. This national identity is strengthened by the national language as it continues to be developed and enriched by usage even as the Philippines aspires to have an active part in the process of globalization of the economies of the world. 

In the study and use or application of regional languages, including minor and major languages, culture is promoted and developed.

Because both written and oral language(s) and culture do not develop in a vacuum. By a continuing process of acculturation through, among others, language planning, usage and through translations, the national community of artists are also strengthened as they learn from others through English and other languages.

The potential enrichment of language, in this case, Filipino, begins, therefore, from an understanding of the concept culture in its various elements and manifestations. This is especially true in the context of Philippine historical and cultural heritage. Many more substantiation, confirmation and affirmation can be done by research, academic and otherwise - through the media of dissemination and communication and by social interaction

Developing Filipino language and culture, when planned and implemented as a national program for inculcating a sense of national purpose and unity, can be a challenging project for strengthening the national identity. It can also make the advocacy for an understanding of the relationship of language to culture and vice-versa, a most relevant program – not  barriers to educational development.