ESL Blogs

Why Do We Have To Speak English?

by: Princess Monera Lumina Bacarat Indol

My father once told us a story that was also narrated to him by his paternal grandfather relative to why many individuals in southern Philippines are conversant to the English language, particularly those who were in their pre-school years when the Americans formally colonized the country.

In the island of Mindanao, Southern Philippines, historically, we were made to believe that speaking the English language would do us better in the future. Well nowadays it would really be an advantage if you speak English. This was the legacy that was left behind by our colonizers, the Americans. When they attempted to educate the locals to the schools that they have erected many of the members of the Royal families (Royal Sultanate system was the form of government at that time in Mindanao). and the well to do locals sent the sons and daughters of their slaves. Slavery at those times were a common practice. They were in fact mandated by the colonizers to send their children to schools to educate them in their ways and customs to make them better persons. The Royals and the locals, hid their children from the colonizers. To make the long story short, the sons and daughters of the slaves were educated properly by the American colonizers and they were in fact given scholarships to be educated in high schools and were encouraged to pursue higher education. Islam was the predominant religion of the people of Mindanao at that time and the locals have declined the opportunity of free education fearing that their children would be Christianized and have made their children ignorant and have remained as such as the time goes by.

The once child of a slave has now become educators themselves and are now teaching the children and grandchildren of their masters. They were appointed into government for they can communicate well with the colonizers. That’s the reason why nowadays, our parents are sending us to school to learn the once feared language in order to learn and become a better person someday. They don’t want to commit the mistakes of the past for ignorance would do more damage than good. This one of the reason why we have to speak the language of our once colonizer to make us better persons who can communicate better with the world.

English is spoken in many countries in the world. Filipinos are now conversant to the language and are being preferred by employers worldwide for they can communicate properly in English. That’s the reason why many “call center” companies are now sprouting like mushrooms all over the country preferring to employ Filipinos for we have a good command of the English language. Many English speaking tourist prefer the country for the ability of the locals to comprehend them and be able to communicate back. For employment purposes, if you have the proficiency skills in the English language you would be preferred among those who are not fluent by big companies.

Now that we are a free country, why do we still have to speak the language of our colonizers? We still have to for we are now engaged in dealing with other countries and many of them are using English language for communication purposes. The language has now became a tool for better understanding one another and transacting business ventures among multi-national companies. The English language is here to stay and we should better learn the art of communicating well with it to become a competitive person in your own simple ways.