Question & AnswerQ&A (Commonwealth Act No. 184)
The purpose of Commonwealth Act No. 184 is to establish a National Language Institute and define its powers and duties, primarily to study Philippine dialects and evolve and adopt a common national language based on one of the existing native tongues.
The National Language Institute is composed of a president and six members, each representing one of the principal linguistic groups of the Philippines. They are appointed by the President of the Philippines with the consent of the Commission on Appointments of the National Assembly.
Each member of the National Language Institute receives a per diem of ten pesos for each session they attend.
The Department of Public Instruction is responsible for providing the National Language Institute with a suitable office and the necessary clerical personnel.
The main tasks include studying the Philippine dialects, making surveys of chief tongues, selecting and grouping words and phrases from native tongues, determining Philippine phonetics and orthography, making a critical study of prefixes, infixes, and suffixes, and choosing the native tongue to be the basis for the national language.
The National Language Institute shall choose the native tongue that is most developed in structure, mechanism, and literature and accepted by the greatest number of Filipinos as the basis for the national language.
Within one year, the National Language Institute must prepare lists of words and phrases from Philippine tongues, the Philippine phonetics and orthography, and a comparative critical study of prefixes, infixes, and suffixes.
Upon publication, the Institute must state which native tongue it has chosen as the basis for the national language and recommend to the President of the Philippines the adoption of that national language.
The President, upon recommendation of the National Language Institute and through executive order, proclaims the national language based on the chosen native tongue, effective two years from the proclamation.
After proclamation, the Institute must prepare and publish a dictionary and grammar of the national language, oversee the purification and enrichment of the language, and ensure its proper use in official publications and school texts.
The Institute purifies the language by safeguarding proper meaning and cleansing unnecessary foreign terms. It enriches the vocabulary mainly using Philippine tongues and secondarily Spanish and English, and forms new words mainly from classical languages such as Greek and Latin, assimilated to Philippine phonetics and orthography.
They must be published not later than two years after the proclamation of the national language by the President.
Subject to approval by the Secretary of Public Instruction, the Institute may correct, alter, or amend the linguistic form of any or all textbooks written in the Philippine national language intended for official adoption in schools.
The Institute shall exist indefinitely unless otherwise provided by law, and its members shall hold office during good behavior.
The sum of fifty thousand pesos is appropriated from the Philippine Treasury to carry out the provisions of the Act and defray necessary expenses until December 31, 1937.
The President of the Philippines, on recommendation of the National Language Institute and approved by the Secretary of Public Instruction, orders the disbursement of funds for publications.
The Act took effect upon its approval on November 13, 1936.