KAPAMPANGAN language and culture advocates have started an online petition to call on Governor Lilia Pineda and other Provincial Government officials to oppose the proposed Bantayog-Wika of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) in Pampanga.

The petition, posted at the world’s platform for change, has been attracting dozens of supporters from Kapampangans and other linguistic groups.

The petition said that the Kapampangan language is one of the endangered languages of the Philippines, according to Mike Pangilinan, lead proponent of the campaign petition.

“People are not passing the language on to their children, instead using Tagalog to speak to them. Our province does not fund research institutes dedicated to preserving the Kapampangan language as a cultural treasure,” the petition said.

The petition added that “the KWF has entered the fray by soliciting our local governments to support the building of a token monument to the Kapampangan language. The monument is an industrial tube, inscribed on which are Tagalog words in the Tagalog script, Baybayin.”

The KWF said that the monuments “aim to enshrine the country’s indigenous languages by constructing physical structures to symbolize the significance of Philippine languages as repository of Filipino cultures’ wealth of indigenous knowledge, social values, life practices and traditions.”

There are already ten language markers erected as of October and the KWF is almost halfway in installing 22 language markers across the country for this year.

However, the petitioners said that the proposed project is an affront to Kapampangan culture.

“We have an existing Kapampangan language and script (Kulitan), which we are trying to revive. It is our inalienable right to commemorate our own language in our own language and using our own script. We also have the right to speak up against the use of Kapampangan taxpayer money for a token monument, while no funding from the same tax purse is allotted for Kapampangan-language schools and research,” the petition said.

The petition aims to call the attention of Governor Pineda, Vice-Governor Dennis Pineda, the Provincial Board and the heads of our various local government units to oppose the said project on behalf of the Kapampangan people.

“Let’s tell them, especially Governor Pineda, to offer strong resistance to the construction of this useless monument,” the petition added.