My mom once told me that children are not passive observers but rather, active ones. What they are exposed to and what they observe, especially when they are in the stage of growing up, become the foundations of their well-being. What a child hears is what a child speaks. What a child hears every day is what he will eventually adapt and master as his first language, his mother tongue.
Growing up with parents who taught in the University of the Philippines meant growing up with not only a sense of patriotism but also with appreciation of language, culture, and art. My mother, Prof. Joycie Alegre teaches theater and film at UP Tacloban and my father, Dr. Edilberto Alegre used to teach literature in UP Diliman. They believed that one way of becoming was through embodying one’s culture. And language, as what they taught me, was part of my evolving culture. As a result, we used Tagalog every day.
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