The following is the report by The Commission on the Filipino Language (Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino) on the relationship of the use of the term 'Filipinas' to the recovery of unity of the whole nation as based on history, logic and the constitution. Following the report is an observation regarding the report. To read the whole and original of the aforementioned report from inquirer.net, click the next group of extracts:
" BUWAN NG WIKA
From ‘Pilipinas’ to ‘Filipinas’
By The Commission on the Filipino Language (Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino)
1 WHY go back to “Filipinas?”
There are three reasons behind the Board of Commissioners Resolution No. 13-19 (April 12, 2012) of the Commission on the Filipino Language or Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF):
First, history. There are now three forms of the name of our country.
Filipinas, the name given by Ruy López de Villalobos in 1548 and used officially by Miguel López de Legazpi when he established the Spanish colony beginning 1565, which was used continuously for 300 years until the time of Rizal and Bonifacio, and again used as the name of the first Asian republic—the “Republica Filipinas” established in Malolos in 1898.
“Philippines,” the name used by the Americans when they entered our country in 1898 and officially used by the Constitution of 1936 and up to the current Constitution of 1987.
“Pilipinas,” used starting around 1941 when the abakada without the F was promoted for general usage and continued as the translation of Filipinas and Philippines in works and documents written in the Pilipino language (which was the name given in 1959 to the national language using the abakada).
Second, language change and development. In the 1973 Constitution, it was stated that “Filipino” instead of Pilipino should be the name of the national language.
This was restated in the 1987 Constitution, together with the proposed modernization and enrichment of the national language by way of the native languages.
The first step in this language change was the eschewing of the abakada and the promotion and spread of the alpabeto with the additional letters C, F, J, Ñ, Q, V, X and Z.
Now that the national language has an F and is called Filipino, isn’t it simply logical to restore Filipinas and gradually discourage the use of Pilipinas?
Third, to be consistent with the method of using the eight additional letters in the Ortograpiyang Pambansa (National Orthography) being promoted by the KWF.
This is the first comprehensive examination of the new alphabet and should be read closely by users of the the Filipino language and other native languages.
The case of Filipinas is ...
... it is also a symbol of the linkage and union of the barangay, tribes and islands of our archipelago.
Before Filipinas, what Legazpi referred to as Indios were a disjointed, scattered lot. He colonized us but also gave us a first means toward national unity.
On the other hand, it is rather difficult to say that just calling our country Pilipinas is already nationalistic. This happened merely because of ...
If we reject the way our founding fathers pronounced our nation, we reject the way they acted towards our nation as a result of their development. If we reject their action towards our nation as a result of their development, we reject their development. If we reject their development, we do not anymore recognize them but somebody else. Since these somebody else are not the ones who came into existense thru our historical development, these so called founding fathers are not anymore real but synthetics. Therefore, if the founding fathers of our nation we recognize are already synthetics, the nation we recognize today as founded by synthetic founding fathers is also synthetic. If the nation we recognize today is synthetic, what kind of people of this nation do we have today then?
If the nation we recognize today is synthetic, how can we have love for it? If the nation we recognize today is already synthetic, how can it produce a people that is organic the way our nation of the 1900s was founded by our organic founding fathers? How then can we have bond with our real founding fathers? And how then can we have bond for a people already a product of a nation founded by people who are already synthetic? The only bond we have then is only thru a piece of paper. With only a piece of paper devoid of flesh and blood developed thru history, how can a bond with a people that is part of our Determinant of National Actions directing us for generations, be ever formed? Without it, how can we have a functioning social order such as that of an organic nation?
How then, can we have a nation with people acting cohesively for the life of our nation and not individually to the detriment of such nation? What we have been experiencing after the mid 1900s are the abandonment of the nation for the pleasure of the self and family. This was the time our developmental defenses against the north americans of the United States invaders have finally been dismantled. This was the time our developmental defenses against the chinese creeping invaders of our economy have finally been dismantled as a result of U.S. blocking of our efforts to wrest control of it from them. It was then that our Determinant of National Actions in our political, economic, defense, and educational systems have been severely corrupted by these foreigners who have taken over control of direction of development of those systems.
Is it still a wonder that after the mid 1900s until today, our archipelago has become the breeding place for corruption, littering of wastes, taking advantage of the weaker by the stronger, destruction of our mountains and forests, mass exile to foreign lands, all legitimized for individual and family survival? Is it still a wonder that those among us who act to correct the deviation that occured along our organic development to recover the nation we inherited from our founding fathers in the form of recovering our clean environment, our original forest lands, our real independence, our original resources, our sovereignty, and our original DNA are identified as the ones who are deviants?
If we are to recover from a corrupted DNA of a people that we are today, let us recover that love of nation we had as a people united in the 1900s. If we are to recover that love of nation we had as a people united and determined at the cost of our individual and family life in the 1900s, let us recover that development of the founding fathers of our nation that directed them to act towards our nation the way they did.
Jose Miguel Garcia
