Is it true that the current national language policy is killing off non-Tagalog languages?

Manuel Faelnar (manuelfaelnar@gmail.com) wrote:

The Philippine National Language Policy is killing our non-Tagalog languages. While in 1948 only 18% of Filipinos spoke Tagalog as a first language, by 1995 this had gone up to 29.29% or one third of the population. On the other hand, while in 1948, 25% of Flipinos spoke Cebuano, by 1995 this had gone down to 21.17%. In 1948 13% of Filipinos spoke Ilocano and another 13% spoke Ilonggo. By 1995 the percentage of Filipinos speaking these two languages had gone down to 9.31% and 9.1%% respectively.

 

In 1948, Bicol was spoken by 8% of the population. By 1995 this was down to 5.69%. Waray was spoken by 6% of Filipinos in 1948. By 1995 only 3.81% of Flipinos spoke Waray. Pampangan or Kapampangan was spoken by 3% of Filipinos in 1948. By 1995 this had gone down to 2.9%. Pangasinense suffered the biggest loss. in 1948, 3% of Filipinos spoke Pangasinense. By 1995 this had gone down to a miserable 1%. The biggest lose of speakers were for Waray, Bicol and Pangasinense but all non-Tagalog languages suffered tremensdous losses.

 

If the above trends continue our non-Tagalog languages will either disappear from the face of the earth or be rendered extremely marginal in just 100 years, some in 50 years.