THE PHILIPPINES is recognized as a linguistic hotspot, housing at least 217 local and international languages in its repertoire.

In the Ateneo, students from Visayas and Mindanao have taken steps to reclaim their regional identity and linguistic heritage. A testament to this is the Katipunan Uban sa mga Ateniyang Nagkahiusa (KUAN), an organization dedicated to the wider promotion of Visayan-Mindanaoan culture and traditions.

Thus, as the Atenean population grows more culturally and linguistically rich, it is crucial to understand how regional students communicate and navigate their identity, given the University’s location in Manila.

The politics of language 

Daily transactions in the Philippines are mediated primarily by English and Filipino, creating what linguist Ruanni Tupas calls the inequalities of multilingualism. These disparities carry cultural, political, and socioeconomic repercussions, deepening linguistic marginalization.

Scholars trace these monolinguistic tendencies to the country’s colonial legacy, when Spanish, and later English, became institutionalized. These colonial policies continue to shape present linguistic practices, diminishing the country’s linguistic heritage.

The Ateneo is no exception to these linguistic inequalities. Despite the University’s efforts to comply with the government’s bilingual language policy, Filipino Department Associate Chair Jomar I. Empaynado recognizes that English largely occupies spaces within campus. As a linguist, he shares that the prioritization of English in daily communication reflects how privilege is embedded in language use, where speech becomes a marker of status.

For some students, encounters with language politics began long before entering the Ateneo. Gaudenis Plaza (3 BS HS) recalls that his elementary school in Butuan City strongly encouraged the use of English over Filipino and even his regional language, Bisaya.

Nevertheless, Empaynado emphasizes that while English dominates much of Atenean campus life, the Filipino language is not free from hierarchy—especially in the context of a Manila-situated University.

“Sa atin, may unequal [na] Filipino. […] Ang pinapaboran ay ang Manila Tagalog at nalalagay sa laylayan […] ang mga regional languages. (Here, we have an unequal Filipino. Manila Tagalog is favored while regional languages are pushed to the margins),” Empaynado stresses. He clarifies that even native Tagalog speakers may experience marginalization as their intonations deviate from Manila-attached Tagalog.

With this, Empaynado recalls a former student from Quezon Province who felt compelled to adjust their accent in accordance with linguistic norms. Feeling vulnerable with their regional accent, they opted to use English instead.

Beyond accents, Empaynado observes that these students often struggled in reading comprehension and writing. Likewise, Plaza admits facing difficulty with FILI 11, especially with heavy grammar requirements in writing the course’s culminating research paper.

Similarly, Filipino Department Instructor John Carlo S. Gloria, MA acknowledges that some regional students need added support in Filipino language skills, yet the five-month semester limits how much help they receive.

Nonetheless, for many regional students, the greater challenge begins outside the classroom, where language plays a central role in establishing a sense of belonging.

Finding one’s voice

As the Ateneo welcomes more students from outside Metro Manila, Empaynado points out that regional students may also face barriers in social life, as language can influence the norms around how one should participate in group settings.

For Plaza, this reality became clear the moment he entered the University. He experienced difficulties due to the unspoken expectations built into the Ateneo community’s language environment, where conversations often defaulted to Filipino. 

“What scares me about speaking in Filipino [is that] I assume people are judging me if I say something incorrectly,” he admits.

Plaza’s challenge, then, was less about grasping meaning and more about finding confidence to join in. Having grown up speaking English and Bisaya, he instinctively relied on these languages, which often left him silent in group settings during his freshman year.

Meanwhile, Kisslle Puengan (3 AB Dip-IR) struggled with the daily absence of her language in Manila. Raised in Pagadian City, she speaks Bisaya at home and with peers, but in the Ateneo, she often felt her words had to be adjusted to fit in.

To Puengan, her language is inseparable from who she is, shaping both identity and community. “There are a lot of aspects to my personality that I can only show if I am speaking in Bisaya,” she explains. Hearing a familiar tongue, she adds, can feel like an instant bridge to familiarity and belonging.

Together, the stories of Puengan and Plaza highlight how language can create both distance and connection. This shows that belonging in the Ateneo is shaped not only by academics, but also by the language norms that govern social life—a reality that calls for a more inclusive campus.

Towards linguistic inclusivity

In forging clearer paths toward language inclusivity, Empaynado underscores the importance of lowering barriers to participation.

In practice, Gloria notes that he is no longer a “purist” in language use, allowing his students to recite in either English or Filipino depending on their comfort. Similarly, Empaynado adds that starting with colloquial Filipino, even Taglish, can lower students’ affective filter, making them feel more comfortable participating in class.

The Filipino Department has also attempted to respond by offering the Filipino for Non-Filipino Speakers (FNFS) track for students with little background in the language. While Empaynado sees this as a meaningful step, he emphasizes that such efforts remain scattered without a formal office or unit to actively promote linguistic diversity.

At the same time, he points to how Filipino is often narrowly equated with Tagalog, weakening the “vitality” of languages spoken across the country. Building on this, Gloria stresses the need to strengthen multilingual education and expand advanced courses in regional languages, ensuring they are integrated in the curriculum and treated with the same importance as other academic courses.

Puengan echoes this sentiment, stressing that inclusivity must also mean fostering “local competence” or encouraging students to engage with the many languages spoken across the Philippines and recognize them as equally valuable.

Ultimately, Empaynado emphasizes that the challenge lies in moving beyond the binary of English versus Filipino. He urges students to unlearn the idea of a monolingual society, highlighting that linguistic diversity is not a problem, but a strength. Recognizing this blind spot, he says, is the first step toward true inclusivity.

As he argues, “Malaki ang halaga na binibigay ng pagiging diverse sa wika sa sustainability nito. Kung environmental iyong notion natin ng sustainability, mahalagang aspekto rin diyan ang wika. (Linguistic diversity is vital to the sustainability of language itself. If we understand sustainability in environmental terms, then language should equally be recognized as a crucial dimension of it.)”

True inclusivity, then, means widening the circle in the Ateneo—not only for English and Filipino—but for the full spectrum of Philippine languages that carry each student’s identity, culture, and story.