Do Filipino Politicians Need to Speak English most of the time?

hehe bisaya man gyud. I think not all people should be judged as intelligent if they can speak fluent English. There are also intelligent people in other countries like in Japan who are also leading in technology but does not give too much importance with English. For me, speaking English fluently is not enough to be patronized when it comes to presenting their products, their services, their integrity or whatever impression they wanted to make. English cannot solve critical problems and is only applicable if you want to be a call center agent.

i agree with you stevelvis. if english alone can make a country good then why is it india and philippines are still poor despite being the best english speaking countries in asia and are the main destinations for call centers and BPO industries. on the other hand, japan, south korea and china cannot even speak basic english properly and yet they are even richer than some countries in europe. besides why do they have to be speak english to fellow kababayans? personally i hate people like that, trying so hard to speak english just to sound "classy and intelligent". i would appreciate them more if these people will speak in tagalog. sometimes i could even hear some speak in their broken english, its as if they're trying to impress people. stupid! i'm a professional & working as a marketing supervisor in a restaurant chain here in manila but i admit im not good in english, i only know the basics but i don't care (and why do i have to anyway?)because it is only my 3rd language and only learning it for economic reasons but most of the time i only speak in tagalog or spanish (i'm fil-spanish)..

Yes there's nothing wrong for using what we learn but not to all circumstances when we need to address the message to the masses. It has become a norm for people to express their knowledge.

yes english is ONLY YOUR 2ND LANGUAGE (3RD IN MY CASE) so it is NOT OK to speak it unless you are surrounded with foreigners who don't know any tagalog and only speak english but otherwise it is really a shame not to use our own language. besides majority of the masses who happens to make up 70% of the filipino population don't even understand full english (myself included and i'm not even among the 70% majority) so what you're saying is true.. if you work as call center agents or talk to foreigners but otherwise its stupid

Politicians who use both English and Tagalog wisely are for the people. You can name many top government officials who speak English most of the time.

and on the contrary look at india, jamaica and some african countries, they also speak good english and yet these countries still plagued with poverty. india despite being the most populous english-speaking country in the world and one of the main destinations for call center & BPO industries (just ahead of us) still cannot solve poverty issues and majority of its people are living below the poverty level. language alone cannot bring food to the table.

For formality sake, we are taught to answer in English when the question is in English. Some media and press people does the initiative.

Maybe that's why most of the poor are taken advantage by the rich because they don't know too much of the law when spoken and written in English.

How come that even the Philippine laws should be written in English? I don't think that if politicians would answer a question addressed in English (esp by a Filipino interviewer), is informal. The desire to be understood by the masses is what matters most.

I admire some politicians who use plain Filipino language. It shows that they want to address their message to the whole Filipino especially to the poor.