#ThrowbackThursdays: Recalling Why I Hated the Filipino Subject in School

High School Philippine History Movement

It's August, and it's frequently associated with Buwan ng Wika. However, August tends to be celebrated more like Filipino cultural month than it is about the language. Right now, I want to "de-stress" by writing about the Filipino subject. I can remember how someone nearly didn't graduate from elementary or high school (during K+10) because of the Filipino subject. It might sound absurd for Generation Z students but in my case, I can relate. Honestly, I hated the Filipino subject, especially since I grew up as a natural-born Filipino, but three out of four of my grandparents were Chinese citizens who took a long time to become Filipinized. I had to deal with the fact that my paternal grandmother became a Chinese citizen again when she got married to my paternal grandfather.

It was in the 1990s, and I remember the Filipino subject. I could easily talk to my Filipino teacher now. Just because I have already forgiven the Filipino teacher who was just doing her job. However, I thought about how often I threw tantrums in Filipino class whenever I saw my Filipino score drop below passing (especially during the periodical tests), and I often had a passive-aggressive hatred for Filipino. I often spent Filipino classes crying. I even asked if there was a school where the Filipino subject wasn't taught, and then I was told, "Don't go to school if you hate Filipino." I often said that I would go to America where I don't have to study Filipino anymore, because it's America.

As I reflect on this subject matter, I remember how often I lost my temper in mathematics classes during my fourth year of high school. I get tempted to relive those decades-long hatred for so-and-so, then I realized, "I don't hate mathematics but the way it's taught." The same could go for the Filipino subject. I remember how often cultural ignorance was a problem among children. In fact, I even remember how I got into an extreme feud with a female classmate in elementary for, seriously, four years. I blame the school's unwillingness to scold petty insults as "children just being children". In fact, mean and cruel jokes often came at making fun of my Chinese ethnicity, my inability to process what it meant to be Chinoy, or how often I felt like why my family wasn't going back to China. If I couldn't speak Chinese fluently, then my next destination was America. 

It's supposed to be a Filipino language class. However, the context often relies on the following faulty curriculum, such as:

1. Focusing too much on short stories over how to properly communicate in Tagalog.
2. Students were often required to learn Tagalog first before entering the class. That requirement is even placed when the region doesn't speak Tagalog as its lingua franca.
3. Not to mention, an unhealthy dose of Pinoy Pride was even taught, which often celebrated the wins of Filipinos like Regine Velasquez, Lea Salonga, and the late Leondro Locsin. It seems to act as if "Filipinos are conquering the world", especially when the lesson is almost taught in the way of a Filipino vs. foreigner dichotomy.
4. We had to memorize poems like Ang Dalagang Filipina (the Filipino Woman) which tried to romanticize Pinoy Pride.
5. If my memory serves me right, I even remember how often these Filipino classes overpraise Carlos P. Garcia as some kind of national hero. This is where I believe the problem that eventually hurt the Filipino teacher as well.

Sure, my fourth year in High School started to make me think differently. I remember my Filipino teacher (whose name I forgot already, sadly) when she mentioned about Jose Rizal (Jose Mercado). She asked a thought-provoking question in Tagalog, which I'll write in English for non-Tagalog speakers. This question was, "Does one have to be born a Filipino native to be truly a Filipino? If we must really 

look into Jose Rizal's blood, he's really Chinese by blood." Wait, why didn't the elementary subjects tell that before? 

As I think about it, I've long considered myself a Filipino. I often look at people who might think I just "bought my citizenship out of thin air", etc., as willfully ignorant. Most people I've had those angry exchanges in the playground back in elementary have already apologized, either directly or through their actions. Either way, I felt like writing this to get rid of some steam!