Paradise Philippines Guide

August is a special month for the Philippines, it is when we celebrate Filipino, our national language. According to our history, Manuel L. Quezon’s efforts started to roll the ball for this celebration. A funny anecdote tells of a confusion that occurred when his house helper announced one of his guests. He is said to experience the same hardship when delivering speeches to address the nation. It is this difficulty he encounters when communicating with the Filipinos of different dialects that forced him to commission a group to handle the language barrier issue.

Congress was tasked to establish a way to strengthen the national language via  Article XIV, Section 3 of 1935 Constitution. English and Spanish were the primary languages back then. Filipino is derived from a mix of English, Chinese, Spanish, Philippine dialects..and of course the major contributor, the Tagalog dialect of the Central regions.

Next in line to bolster the National Language effort was President Ramon Magsaysay. He declared the celebration of Linggo ng Wika in 1945. Back then, it was celebrated every March 28 to April 2 of the year to commemorate the birthday of Francisco Balagtas, the Father of Balagtasan.

In 1955, President Magsaysay changed the date to August 13-19 with Presidential Proclamation Proclamation # 186. This is in line with President Quezon’s birth date..now known as the father of the national language.

This year, Paradise Philippines is dedicating the entire month of August for the Celebration of Buwan ng Wika. To keep the spirit of the occasion alive the Pinoy Blogosphere is sponsoring the Wika 2007 Blog Writing Contest

According to their website: “The Wika2007 Blog Writing Contest is a group writing effort aiming to trumpet the beauty and strength of the Filipino Language in line with this year’s Buwan ng Wika theme: “Maraming Wika, Matatag na Bansa” (Free translation: “A gift of tongues for a strong nation”). With the significance of the Internet in shaping the culture today, blogging about the Language will not only enforce the online Filipinos’ love for their native tongue, but also promote it to bloggers around the world.”

The group will begin accepting entries on August 6, 2007 until the 18th of the month. The contest is open to all Filipino bloggers, both in the Philippines and abroad. They will judge the entries from August 20 to the 25th, announcing the winner on August 29, 2007.

Prizes are as follows:

• Grand Prize: Php5,000 + 1yr Domain Registration. + 1yr 100mb hosting
• Second prize: Php3,000 + 1yr Domain Registration + 1yr 100mb hosting
• Third prize: Php1,000 + 1yr Domain Registration + 1yr 100mb hosting
• plus consolation prizes

Please check out their site for the rules.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 7:41 am and is filed under Paradise Philippines - News, Paradise Philippines Events, Paradise Philippines - General Info, Paradise Philippines - Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.