Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

EDUCATIONAL SECTION

179

the Tagalogs by the other native regions. This suspiciousness
is' as ridiculous as it is incongruent with the lessons of our own
experience. At no time of our patriotic history have the
Filipinos learned more extensively and perfectly the Spanish
language, as during the official implantation of the English
language. Such may also be said, and, perhaps, to a greater
extent, about the Filipino literature in vernacular languages.
Affirming, as we do affirm, that English, as an official language,
and Tagalog, as the national language, may compatibly coexist
and work together for the general culture and the national
and international stability of the Filipino State, we cannot
understand why they can not coexist nor colaborate reciprocally
the Tagalog as a common language, and the Visayan, Iloco,
Maguidanao, etc., as languages in their respective provinces.
Each region will conserve and can perfect its dialect; and the
language, favored by the election and common consent, will
only serve as an intermediary in the national religious, literary,
and so forth, transactions, between the diverse groups of our
race, which is one, and should always be indissoluble.
It is still argued, however, that, since the Tagalog is spoken
only4by two million Filipinos, why should it be precisely the
chosen one and not the Visayan, which is spoken by five
millions?
Comprising as it does more than three dialects, the Visayan
speech, —the Cebuan, the Panay, the Leyte-Samar, the Aklan,
etc.-it is not to be wondered that with the coming up of this
proposition there remain implicitly the question of lexicographic
diversity and the grammatical and phonological differences
which exist among said dialects. This will induce besides
offensive comparisons about how the Aklan differs from the
Cebuan, the Cebuan from the Panay, the Panay from the
Leyte, and how each of them differs from the Tagalog in order
to deduce more or less facility in the study of one or the other.
But as I have already said at the outset, I am limiting to
the problem of common language the practical point of view,
and for an eminently national end. The reason for the selection or for the preference of a fixed language does not depend
so much on the quantity nor on the quality of the municipalities