ANC Leadership Forum Monday 7 pm

The first salvo of the ANC Leadership Forum for presidential candidates gets underway tomorrow, Monday, 7 pm. It will be broadcast live from Leong Hall of the Social Sciences Building, Ateneo de Manila University.

The line-up so far of those who have said yes: Mar Roxas, Chiz Escudero, Jojo Binay. I am sure Loren Legarda and Manny Villar would also join. What about Noli de Castro? I hope so. But this being a discussion where questions will be taken from a live audience, I do not think Noli will be too eager to join this one. I do not mind if the presidential candidates answer in Filipino or in English. What I do mind are brainless answers from minds not fully engaged, or not engaged at all, in the issues of the day.

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A mansion of many languages

BY DANTON REMOTO, abs-sbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 10/16/2008 1:00 AM REMOTE CONTROL In 1977, my mentor, the National Artist for Literature and Theater Rolando S. Tinio, said: “It is too simple-minded to suppose that enthusiasm for Filipino as lingua franca and national language of the country necessarily involves the elimination of English usage or training for it in schools. Proficiency in English provides us with all the advantages that champions of English say it does – access to the vast fund of culture expressed in it, mobility in various spheres of the international scene, especially those dominated by the English-speaking Americans, participation in a quality of modern life of which some features may be assimilated by us with great advantage. Linguistic nationalism does not imply cultural chauvinism. Nobody wants to go back to the mountains. The essential Filipino is not the center of an onion one gets at by peeling off layer after layer of vegetable skin. One’s experience with onio...

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