Think about it
Bayambang – father of Ph’s modern national language?
By Jun Velasco
“To be doing good is man’s most glorious task.” Sophocles
OVERHEARD at Orly Navarro’s “Orly in the morning” program over DWIZ—is this eraption, “Those who have less in life should have more in-laws.”
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LAST weekend found us at Bayambang’s Gerry Lacuesta Memorial Cup cycling race to kick off the town’s quadri-centennial festivities.
Of the various festivities that color summer in the province, none can probably match the depth and lofty perch of the town’s role in the Philippine struggle against the foreign colonizers, first the Spaniards, then the Americans.
At the kick-off that fired off the cycling race, there was in the speech of our friend ‘Q’ Execom chairman Dr. Henry Fernandez which caught our interest: his description of Gerry Lacuesta as a “multifaceted genius.”
What’s well-known to most was his being the founder of the Tour of Luzon cycling classic. His other stellar credentials—the ill-fated management of the Mangabul fisheries which caused his premature death by a “hired killer,” his being publisher of Katas Magazine…and his forays on, let’s see now, linguistics.
Dr. Henry and us remember too well, each time he’d open the subject, many of us, including former acting Vice Gov. Jojo Estrella, former Mayor Jaime Junio, Atty. Atilano Iglesias, then Councilors Oscar Marzo, Bayambang police chief Pedro Junio, Atty. Felipe Santillan and broadcaster Jess Castillo, behaved like we were “disipulos” and all ears to “the genius” of Bayambang.
We told his sister Cornelia and a grand-daughter at Mayor Ric Camacho’s Mahogany Resort that Manong Gerry was a brilliant lawyer, writer and communicator. This last skill (communications) coughed up his unparalleled advocacy of a Philippine national language that considered abhorrent the Tagalog-based national language, called Pilipino based on Tagalog or Abakada.
He would explain that it was his “sad” experience as Tour of Luzon organizer to communicate with various locals in different provinces with their own native dialects. Lacuesta found out that the rather “imposing dictatorial” small group that composed the National Langauge Committee was dictating on Filipinos a Tagalog-based language which even the Tagalogs did not like. Why? Because, as Lacuesta claimed, the Lope K. Santos or Panganiban group was imposing a language that had a minority of letters, say, only 20 letters.
The Tagalog alphabet does not have the letters c, f, j, ll, ñ, v, x, z which, Lacuesta averred, would make the so-called national language “retrogressive,” not progressive.
His campaign brought him to the highest councils of education, linguistics, scholarship centers and prestigious forums including the Congress of the Philippines which was to legislate the national tongue and its evolution or development as a national language.
To Lacuesta, it should be the Manila Lingua Frenca—not Tagalog—which should form the basis of a national language.
With us in tow, Gerry “invaded” the inner sanctums of linguistics so much so that his research even led him to conceptualize a world lingua franca based on the Manila Lingua Franca. Former Congressman Aguedo F. Agbayani told us when we called on him that Lacuesta was on his way to becoming the author of a new Filipino language.
To a meaningful degree, his advocacy succeeded. That’s why today, our national language is Filipino, not Pilipino, although Pilipino is our official language, which still shows the deep penetration by the Tagalog purists.
The development and evolution of our national language, as then Congressman Agbayani agreed, was largely the work of our own Gerry Lacuesta.
This is why we told Bayambang’s historian, Ms. Emma Mula, that properly presented, Bayambang, once the official seat of the Philippine Republic, could claim two more prestigious national titles – center of Philippine cycling and seat of the national language.
Meantime, let’s party at its Malangsi Festival on April 5, the town’s foundation day.
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NOTES: Congrats, new lawyer Raymond Quijano Velasco, 25, son of former Usec. Dante Velasco… What’s FVR’s formula for a sound mind and a sound body? We think his passion for physical fitness and sense of humor… Our news releases always addressed “Secretary Antonio “Bebot” Villar” as such. We’re surprised the caption at the Manila Standard photo caption item said “former undersecretary.” Sorry, but congrats!
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