How’s our English?
by Solita Collas-Monsod

The Philippines is the third-largest English-speaking country in the world, after the United States and the United Kingdom. That’s what it says in practically all the blurbs about our country. One even goes so far as to say that about 72 percent of our country’s population is “fluent” inm English.

“Fluent.” I looked the word up in the dictionary, just to make sure that it means what I thought it means. It is defined as “indicating facility in or command of something”; “able to speak or write smoothly, easily, or readily”. And from the evidence of my own eyes and ears, it is doubtful if 56 million of our compatriots, as claimed, meet that criterion.

A recent e-mail from businessman-golfer Joey Yujuico, with a list of some examples of how the language gets fractured, is illustrative: “I couldn’t care a damn.” What’s your next class before this?” “Don’t touch me not!” “Hello? For a while, please hang yourself.” “It’s spilled milk under the bridge.” “You! You’re not boy anymore! You’re a man anymore!”

Even in the largest multinational companies, the operator, after the first, very smooth “So-and-so corporation, Good Morning!” will switch to Filipino when the caller says anything other than the expected request to be connected to some office. Radio and TV stations are barraged with protesting calls and texts when commentators and talk-show hosts speak in English. So I don’t know where those 56 million people are.

And neither, it seems, do call-center firms who want to hire people fluent in spoken English in the Metro Manila area. Bambina Buenaventura informs me that out of every 100 applicants for call-center operators in the National Capital Region—and there are thousands of them, because entry-level pay is P 15,000 a month, plus overtime for evening and weekend work—only five pass the oral test. The applicants do fine as far as the aptitude part is concerned, but spoken English is another matter altogether. Regional accents are not the problem, says Bambina, because these are relatively easy to correct. The problem is that 95 percent of the applicants have difficulty both in understanding what is asked, and in communicating the answer if they understood the question.

Surprisingly (because we in the NCR think we are the best in everything), call centers find Cebu and Dumaguete relatively more fertile hunting grounds for English-fluent operators. That is why they are beginning to locate in those areas rather than in the NCR. The main point, however, is that in the “third-largest English-speaking country”, there is a shortage of English-fluent speakers. Which means that in a globalizing world, we are losing an important competitive edge. Job opportunities are being lost. It is not a demand problem but a supply one.

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Originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 13, 2003.
Reprinted with permission.