Why are we still so obsessed with English speakers?
Every week, PhilSTAR L!fe explores issues and topics from the perspectives of different age groups, encouraging healthy but meaningful conversations on why they matter. This is Generations by our Gen Z columnist Angel Martinez.
Like any student entering a new school, I faced my fair share of bullying. And like any instance of bullying, the reasons were neither right nor fair.
English was my first language at home and in school—the one I used to think and dream. I read books as voraciously as I wrote pieces, and spoke with the accent and cadence of the Disney princesses and Technicolor dinosaurs I grew up watching. Of course, that made me deeply unpopular with girls my age: I was labeled maarte, annoying, and an “anime lover,” which was apparently the worst thing a girl could be in 2009.
Today, smart-shaming of this scale seems to no longer exist among members of my generation. But what might masquerade as a sign of progress reveals rather regressive perspectives. I see my peers praising content creators with Westernized accents, whose verbose arguments are often devoid of substance; or romanticizing the idea of having a “conyo” Atenean boyfriend, when they can be difficult to hold a conversation with. What explains this?
Well, the root of all evil, really: colonialism. A little history lesson: During the American occupation, English was sold as the key to upward mobility and social capital. And though formal rule ended, its effects reverberate in “[our] habits, hierarchies, and systems, which still make certain people, places, and languages feel ‘higher’ than others,” Dr. Ruanni Tupas, associate professor of sociolinguistics at University College London, tells PhilSTAR L!fe.
One interesting thing to note is that proficiency in the language, in general, isn’t enough to cement status. In one of his papers, Southern Luzon State University sociolinguistics professor Dr. Nicanor Guinto pinpoints a perceived hierarchy among English speakers. “It’s the American and British varieties that are valued: those often heard in the mass and digital media and associated with figures of power such as celebrities, politicians, and prominent educators,” he explains to L!fe.
These contribute to what Tupas refers to as indexicality: the meanings we ascribe to particular ways of speaking. Philippine languages are largely associated with the provincial, less professional. English, on the other hand, is indexed as smart, global, rich. That must be why a number of Pinoys put it on a pedestal. Our distinct desire for proximity to wealth—our obsession with nepo babies and the old money aesthetic—has us idolizing members of the 1% and excusing their actions like it grants us entry to their inner circles.
It’s why we’re so forgiving of fluent English speakers who butcher our language: Some examples that come to mind include Emman Atienza’s Tagalog TikTok compilations, and Atasha Muhlach’s blunders on live TV. Granted, they may have grown up in English-speaking households, but it’s always rubbed me the wrong way that we let them milk it for comedic value, like it’s something to be proud of.
Meanwhile, we continue to look down on ourselves or our countrymen who are not as proficient. We see it as a source of shame, a reason for silence—the very rationale behind “nosebleed” culture. It’s inescapable within our institutions: Think of the English-only policies in our grade school classrooms, where one Filipino word corresponded to one peso in a coin bank. The customer service scripts that demand an agent from New York, Cubao to sound like someone from New York, USA. Even essay writing contests sometimes reward form over substance.
The narratives we are told, and the language they are told in, inevitably shape how we speak. As Guinto says: “These practices are internalized as children, carried into interactions beyond the classroom, and eventually normalized.” One of the most cookie-cutter punchlines is someone fumbling their English and failing to realize until they notice everyone laughing at them.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn the language. “It cannot be denied that [English] remains a valuable resource for accessing better opportunities in both global and local linguistic markets,” Guinto says. The danger, however, lies in “asserting dominance or demeaning others, especially those who lack the resources to acquire such a valued linguistic asset.”
I believe global competitiveness can still coexist alongside allegiance to our national language. Ingraining this in all of us, however, should start with the very systems that uphold our colonial mentality. “The use and development of our own languages should be prioritized through our policies in education, for starters,” Precious Sarah Aller, assistant professor at the University of Los Banos’ language division, suggests to L!fe. “We have long regarded English as the language of education because of its use as a medium of instruction, but there’s Filipino and the rest of our indigenous languages which could be used for knowledge production and transfer.”
This means transcending tokenistic efforts to empower the use of our national languages. (The chronically online among us might recall the debates surrounding the usage of Baybayin, which was largely dismissed as a performative act that prioritized aesthetics over actual utility.) Akbayan Partylist representative Chel Diokno recently proposed a mandate to translate all laws with penal provisions into Filipino, Bisaya, and Ilocano.
While already dismissed by many as a “massive undertaking,” it is true that the discussions have to start somewhere—like ourselves, as Aller says: “We can start the ideological shift by choosing to use our own languages in different aspects of the society that we once thought were English-centered, beyond informal conversations at home and on the streets.”
This means doing away with our superiority/inferiority complex, depending on what side of the argument we’re on. We must understand that mastery of the English language does not make us inherently better, and that wielding words to mock or intimidate says more about our upbringing than anyone else’s.
Because even without English as a framework, those who came before us were building communities and creating traditions of their own. The very people we ostracize for stuttering through English sentences labor for long hours to carry our economy on their backs. What they’ve managed to achieve simply cannot be put into words.
Generations by Angel Martinez appears weekly at PhilSTAR L!fe.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of PhilSTAR L!fe, its parent company and affiliates, or its staff.
