There is an on-going debate as to the appropriate name for our country. Online, we have people who try to convince others to call this country "Filipinas", instead of the "Philippines". Others revived the popular 70's topic of changing the name of the "Philippines" into "Maharlika".
Virgil Almario, President of the Commission on the Filipino Language started the debate when he publicly announced that it is better to call our country " Filipinas" instead of "Pilipinas." Of course, the use of the letter "F" says so much about the colonial linguistic baggages brought by the Spaniards. Almario says its best to use "F" instead of "P" to give the name a proper historical perspective.
The use of "Filipinas" dates to the time when the Spaniards took over the country, and it changed into "Pilipinas", when efforts at Filipinizing the government went into full gear during the fifties and into the eighties.
While the idea is okey, the desired result is not. If the reason is to give the name the proper historical perspective, isn't wiser to use "P" instead of "F", since the use of "P" is ingrained in the indigenous language and was used much earlier than "Filipinas".
What will we gain from such a change except perhaps remember those times when we were enslaved by the Spaniards? Is that something of value?
What is important sans the use of letters is perception about the brand. Many say, the very word "Filipinas" connotes "slavery", and therefore, not apt for our use, being now, a truly democratic society.
It is not truth. Filipinas was one of the Spanish kingdoms and later was part of the New Spanish kingdom. And after 1812 Filipinas was a province of Spain, with the same rights and the same duties.
ReplyDeleteYou must tell all the truth.
I hereby state in favor of changing the name Piipinas to Filipinas. In general truth filipinas was the original name of the country before the Spaniards changed it to filipinas so that we would remember the righteous name of our country in the first place though we would remember their enslavement of us we would also remember of how we overcame their power and regained our freedom of which we so long fought for at those times that is why we shouldn't forget our origin for it would serve as our inspiration for a change in everything. And my question to all of you is would anyone in his right state of mind that will change something for the worse i think not, so as to remember our origin and past and to change our identity as a society who's perseverance and love for the country along with all the sacrifice done by each and eventually defeated their conquerors.
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