How does the government interpret the "auxiliary clause" of the 1987 Constitution?

Manny Faelnar (manuelfaelnar@gmail.com) writes on 02/11/06:

Government agencies such as the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) use "auxiliary" in a very limited, stifling, and restricted manner. Some examples are given below.

• Section 3 of Republic Act 7104 (approved August 14, 1991), An Act Creating the Commission on the Filipino Languages defines auxilliary language as follows: "REFERS TO THE LANGUAGE spoken in certain places WHICH SUPPORTS OR HELPS the national and/or official languages IN THEIR ASSIGNED FUNCTIONS." (Emphases added.)
• In a paper entitled "Educational Policies and Language Maintenance in Multilingual Settings", J.J. Smolcz, I. Nical. and M.J. Secona wrote: "The use of 'local vernaculars' was allowed as AUXILIARY to the media of instruction BUT ONLY WHEN NECESSARY TO UNDERSTANDING OF CONCEPTS BEING TAUGHT IN ENGLISH AND FILIPINO. (Quisumbing 1989:311, emphases added)."
• Under the 1987 Guidelines of DECS, some allowance continued to be made for schools to use local non-Tagalog "vernacular" or regional languages of the area as auxiliary media of instruction BUT ONLY WHEN NECESSARY TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF CONCEPTS BEING TAUGHT IN THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE (emphases added.).
• DECS Order No. 25 s. 1974 provides the Implementing Guidelines for the Policy of Bilingual Education as follows: "The Regional Languages shall be used as auxiliary media of instruction and as INITIAL languages for literacy WHERE NEEDED". (emphases added.)
• The language policy of the Commission on HIgher Education is as follows: "At the discretion of the HEI Higher Educational Institution Literature and other subjects may be taught in Filipino, English or any other language SO LONG AS THERE ARE ENOUGH INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS FOR THE SAME, AND BOTH STUDENTS AND INSTRUCTORS/PROFESSORS ARE COMPETENT IN THE LANGUAGE." (Clemencia Espiritu, Language Policies of the Philippines, NCCA, emphases added.) [Vince's note: How can they be competent in their language if it is ignored in the schools?]

 

Given the foregoing interpretations of the government, our non-Tagalog languages have been given the status of inferior languages to be used only when necessary if at all.