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.

180 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

which form the ethnographic or linguistic groups as on the
greater or less degree of pliability and efficacy of the adoption
and use of the language. In this sense count much the considerations of historical character, geographical literary, heroic,
educative, social, political, commercial, industrial, etc.
Here are the most outstanding qualities which give credit to
the Tagalog and make it worthy of being adopted as a national
language. We do not say it; it is proclaimed by the old books
about the Philippines, it is said by foreign publications, foreign
historians, wise and intelligent fellow citizens, who are not
Tagalogs, nucleuses of Filipinos from diverse regions who are
found in different places inside and outside of the country; in
other words: it is the Tagalog that is given weight by almost
all the historians of our race; the most linguistic and most
representative type of the country and according to all oriental
philologists the best cultivated and the one with the oldest
and most copious literature; the common and official language
among Filipinos abroad, or in the agricultural and penitentiary
colonies, or in workman and student congregations, etc.; the
language used and consecrated by the Katipunan, the Revolution, and the Constitutional Government of Malolos; the
language of the great capital of the Archipelago to which
necessarily flows the regional population in search of knowledge, work, fashion, etc., as well as the law, justice, and official
help; it is, finally, the most spontaneous and unanimously
recommended by the majority of our linguists and intellectual
and social leaders for the national language, as shown in the
answers to my questionnaire.
And if all these merits given in favor of Tagalog are not
enough for its adoption as a basis of our national language,
let all the reasons and proofs of superiority and higher qualifications in favor of any other sister language be given now-and
I believe that in this I express faithfully the feelings of allwe shall willingly and unconditionally receive its adoption.
Countrymen: In the first day of the present Independence
Congress our national leaders have advised us that in facing
the actual state of our cause in the United States, we should
not entirely look upon it with either pessimism or optimism.