Carl Justine G.

Tagura
Removal of Filipino Subject in College

According to Ethic Group Philippines (2019), there are over 170 languages in the
Philippines that are being used today. It is because of the reason that the Philippines is an
ethnically diverse country resulting to different languages that are being used (Pariona, 2018).
The Philippines may have many different languages but it only had two languages as its official
languages, which is the Filipino and English, and also the Filipino as its national language. We
can see here that Filipino is not only a language for us but it can also be a proof that we are
existing. It can be comprehended also as our sense of identity, because it is our national
language, and it is our own language. This language, Filipino, is such a big part of our identity, it
is the unifying language of our country, but with the removal of Filipino and Panitikan as a
subject in the core subjects in college, ordered by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED),
can we really consider it as the unifying language of our country? Can we say that this language
is the one holding us together when we can’t even study it deeper to have a more concrete
understanding of it? Is it really right to remove Filipino subject in college? These questions are
something we should think about.
Considering the state of our country now, I think it is not ideal to remove the Filipino
subject in college. Even if they say that they are transferring it to the senior high school level, it
really doesn’t equate to when it was being taught in college. De Vera (n.d.) said that “Filipino
and Panitikan are transferred because these are important building blocks in the preparation of
senior high students to be university-ready when they graduate.” These statement may be true
but we should also consider that Filipino are important for students that will go to the outside
world. It is important for the students to have a sense of nationalism before they work so they
can serve their countries in their work.
As a citizen of our country, it is our right to express our concerns or say what we want to
the leader of our country if it is something that concerns our nation. We need to actively fight for
what we think is the right thing to do and in this case, we need to fight for our national language.
It is because of this language that we are unified even if we have different languages because of
our ethnic diversity. Also, as said by Rodriguez (2019), “the continued teaching of the Filipino
language and Philippine Literature up to college is important because it is part of the molding of
a nationalist consciousness and Filipino aspirations of our students.” I think Filipino language is
one of the reasons that we can held our head high and be proud of what we achieve, it is because
of the reason that we know who we are and we have something that we can truly call ours.
Filipino language is not just a language, it is a manifestation of our ideals and aspirations
(Costales, 2019).