Language as a problem of development: Ideological debates and comprehensive education in the Philippines

Fixation on language in language policy debates is not a natural given. In fact, it has to be re-examined. This paper argues that another effective way to look at language policy is to suspend talk on language, and instead first engage with social development issues where people are at the heart of the social landscape. It discusses three ways of engagement with language policy as seen in the landscape of the politics of language, education and social development in the Philippines. The first way is engaging language policy which means debating the key features of the existing language policy usually based on ideological concerns. The second way is re-engaging language policy which highlights previously sidelined provisions of the policy such as those concerning local languages in education. The third way is disengaging from language policy which primarily sees language policy as part of a general social development framework, i.e. the imperative to focus on specific needs of local communities from which the roles of language emerge. The key point to note is that language does not seem to figure as a fundamental problem that needs to be addressed.