A WELCOME REMARK TO THE COMPLETION CEREMONY, National English Proficiency Program, District of Balete

Good morning!
I stand before you here today in behalf of the Honorable Mayor to welcome you to this special occasion. He gave me the marching order yesterday of welcoming you in a manner befitting of your class. Just the other week, I was also tasked being the outgoing President of the Aklan League of Secretaries to the Sanggunian of welcoming the delegates to the 8th Regional Assembly cum Seminar of the Regional League of Secretaries to the Sanggunian held in Boracay Island. Considering the ambience of the place and the restlessness of the delegates, I was prompted of welcoming them lightly. I told them that the Aklanon Secretaries have this two types of words of welcome—the short and the long one. The short being, “Welcome.” And the long one is, “Welcome, Welcome, Welcome!” It sounds as a “major, major” remark of Ms. Venus Raj.
This early and without preempting their confirmation by Mr. Rapiz, allow me to convey the felicitations of the Local Government Officials to all those who underwent and completed this National English Proficiency Program here in Balete. I believe that the program has been served well with Ms. Meriam Zapador being their companion in this journey towards English proficiency.
I don’t have inside information of the modules you have for this program but I imagine it as something that invites you to take a second look into the dynamics of the English language vis-à-vis the cultural set up that we Filipinos have at this point in time. But I do know that the intention of the program is to keep you updated, inviting you to adapt to the changing and new realities as brought about by the Age of Information Technology. I see that it is an opportunity to grow, to be relevant. I’m imagining a vampire who through the world of Geoffrey Chaucer endured the Great Vowel Shift as brought about by the standardized Early Modern English of Shakespeare and suddenly teleported (I would rather say, awakened) and immersed into the greater varieties of the English language of the contemporary world, not to mention the jejemon lingo.
Cultures have been evolving over hundreds of thousands of years, and languages are rich with the differences: the sounds, the rhythms, and the phraseology—just to name but a few. Some thinkers even used the word, “grow”, as if language is alive. Now, this is so as language being one of the many forms of communications expresses at the deepest level how we are experiencing the world at a given moment. And how we experience the world at a given moment depends, most likely, upon our culture, and upbringing.
In the seventies, Dr. Alvin Toffler, author of bestselling non-fiction books such as Powershift, Future Shock and The Third Wave, was busy dissecting our history into three “waves”. The rapid growth in the fields of science and technology led him to infer that future shocks and alters the course of history. More to it, values such as nationalism will be giving way to new realities like globalization. As we moved into the 21st century, power lever will be shifting—it has already shifted I should say, from brute physical strength of the Agricultural age and the wealth of the Industrial revolution into the Age of Information. We are indeed in a very different environment where everything is becoming linked together via the microchips. We see traditional jobs becoming obsolete and eliminated, giving way or shifted to places in the globe where wages are most competitive. The signs of the time are calling us to change, to adapt, to learn the intricacies of the new world of Information Communication Technology, reminding us that the entry card to it is to have the best information available and the proficiency of communicating it.
I have been tempted of welcoming you with a heavy remark when I originally plan of writing down a lighter one. Please don’t misconstrue my intention. You deserve better, heavier stuff than enduring the bickering of Kapuso, Kapamilya and Kapatid on your TVs.
As I’ve seen it, proficiency in communicating helps us bring out the creative in us, enabling us to bridge the gap in language or culture, in personality or educational background. My friend proved this to himself when he had stopped over in Rome while studying for priesthood. I bet some of you know him. He don’t speak Italian, and Italians hate English. So his problem was how to communicate with Italians during his brief stay in Roma.
Fortunately, he knows a little about Italians. His favorite violinist is Paganini, his favorite conductor is Toscanini, and his favorite sports car is Lamborghini.
So he figured that if he added “nini” to every word uttered, he would be understood. No harm trying it, he told himself. So he did. Outside the airport, he flagged a taxi: “Taxinini,” and a cab pulled over. Along the way, he felt hungry, so he asked the driver to take him to a “restoranini.” And he did.
He went into the restaurant, took a table, and signaled to a waiter. “Waiternini,” He said. A waiter came with a menu and said, “Signore, (in Italian) what do you want to eat?” He could not read the menu which was in Italian, so he said, “Chickenini and spagettinini.”
The waiter wrote on his order pad. Then, he smiled at him and said: “Signore, kakainini o babalutinini?”
My dear educators, honorable ladies and gentlemen, proficiency in communication will really help us bridge the gap, enable us to face the challenges ahead of us and help us adapt to the changing times for us to realize our common dreams; that we can achieve if we dare enough to be creative, to be available, to reach out, to be open to learning and the new realities as brought about by the influx of information communication technology. Through it all we will bridge personal, professional and cultural differences with peoples we interact with.
With that heavy stuff, I welcome you to Balete.