Datu Adlo needs not to call, for the islands are awake before his reign, all are up to collect tubin in lingual pottery of the same clay rolled thin for our licud. As the women gather, the mountains sing of freedom, stacattos dotting a-ba-ka-da. The women reply: e-ga-ha-i-la. The men collect our evening meals with a bancan until Mother Songhot calls us to return and rest at our balai.
We are roused from sleep by the church campana, abuela opening the curtains to a nuevo idioma. A tongue of fire, a baptism in the eyes of Nuestro Padre but a weapon in the hands of many a Jose. Pull the trigger, loaded with las palabras. Libertad! Crack! Red ink is spilled across la Tierra adorada. The women and the mountains sing a Pasíon for the indios.
Going once, going twice, sold to the democratic gentleman in blue; He feeds us a Germanic meal, a new taste on our tongue. Together, we water our lingua franca; it blossoms into crimped quarter notes: puók sa mangá lungsód. Now plant a bomb—bakudan—into this garden of a greater Asia; Can you imagine it? Well, frankly, Joe, I don’t even think we’ll make it to Tarlac.
Oh, but we breathe again! The mountains sing songs of old in new tunes; Inang Buwan calls us back to rest once more in our beloved balay; descendants of Rizal, Balagtas, and Joaquin sit at the pottery wheel shaping a balák from a bálak—but the air is not yet free of gunpowder. New chapters shall be written into the lexicon as old authors call out from beneath the terra, Leave none out! Amping! Innam mu ikau!
What is language then if not the ink that flows through our history? The Filipino is a product of this lingual clay, of translation, refashioned again and again. How can we love our language—ang ating wika—if we do not know of the blood spilled and rights attained? Then take away the subjects, history and Filipino, where teachers sit at the pottery wheel shaping young minds until all we know is the life of Uncle Sam or the songs of our Northern Neighbors, until the mountains of this lupang hinirang no longer sing. School is for naught if we are deprived of everything that makes up our identity. Now what is language without education? Untruth.
