Jose Villa Panganiban

Panganiban was born on June 12, 1903, in Bautista, Pangasinan, to Geminiano Panganiban, a lawyer and pharmacist^[4] from Tanauan, Batangas, and Policarpia Villa of Caloocan, then part of Rizal.^[5]

He spent his early childhood in Paniqui, Tarlac. At age 13, his family returned to his father's hometown where, at age 27, he married Consuelo Torres. They had five children.^[5]

Panganiban, while being fluent in Kapampangan aside from Tagalog and foreign languages, was also able to speak Ilocano and Pangasinan.^[5]

Panganiban finished his studies in Tanauan Elementary School in 1919 and in Batangas High School in 1923. In college years, he graduated at the National University in 1925; University of Santo Tomas (UST) in 1929, 1935, and 1937; University of Notre Dame in 1940; and lastly in South Bend, Indiana.^[5]

While in UST, in 1927, Panganiban, then a journalism student and working as a hot cake cook in a university restaurant, were among those students who worked for an official student publication,^[6] which he established in January 1928 as Varsitarian—which would be the oldest Catholic campus paper in the Philippines;^[1] thus he is called the "father of Varsitarian".^[7] He had been the president of the UST Literary Society when he was elected associate editor of the publication at the start of academic year 1928–1929;^[7] he also became the business manager and editor of the Alumni and Humor sections.^[6]

Under Panganiban's leadership, the paper boosted literature and later received positive feedbacks due to its contents. He later suggested that the payment for the paper would be included in the tuition fee, citing financial issues and low circulation.^[7]

Panganiban worked as professor for English,^[4] Tagalog, and Spanish languages in the UST^[4] and San Beda College beginning in 1929. He also taught literature, journalism, poetry, speech, justification, semantics, and lexicography. By the late 1960s, he worked as an interviewer in the graduate schools of UST, the Philippine Normal College, and Manuel L. Quezon University.^[5]

At the same time, he was the director of the Institute of National Language (INL^[8] or Surian ng Wikang Pambansa, SWP; now the Commission on the Filipino Language or Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, KWF)^[1][2] of the Department of Education,^[5] and was the head of the UNESCO's Akademya ng Wikang Filipino.^[5]

In a controversy involving the Institute where Tagalogs and non-Tagalogs had disputes on whether Tagalog be the national language, Panganiban was among the four directors being the proponents of that view.^[9] Tagalog was referred to as Pilipino by the Department in 1959.^[10]

During World War II and months prior to the end of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Panganiban once acted as Liaison Officer in meeting the American army paratroopers in Tagaytay. In 1945, he then worked for PCAU (Philippine Civil Affairs Unit) 20 and for the Military Censorship Department of the United States Army Forces in the Far East.^[8]

Panganiban was a writer of Tagalog poetry, and then wrote as well for English newspapers. He later took time to study Tagalog with the help of his father.^[4]

According to Panganiban himself, since 1919, he began to help his father who had been conducting his research work as early as 1908; and continued that after the latter's death around 1935.^[4]

His father first published his sixteen conjugations of the Tagalog verb in Los Verbos Tagalos en 16 Conjugaciones in 1912, and further researches reduced the number to seven which was published as Fundamental Tagalog in 1937,^[4] a year prior to a proclamation issued by President Manuel L. Quezon designating Tagalog as the basis for the national language as suggested by the INL.^[4][10]

Thereafter, Panganiban taught Tagalog to a newly-arrived Dutch who was then appointed parish priest of San Jose, Nueva Ecija, within three months; the latter later suggested to merge two theories, thus reducing to six. He also consulted publications, Diccionario Tagalog-Hispano by Pedro Serrano-Laktaw and another by INL secretary and executive officer Cecilio Lopez.^[4]

Panganiban later used his 1937 publication, being used for Tagalog studies, to prove his theories, which was published by the INL in January 1939. At that time, he was about to publish Singhuluganan ng mga Salitáng Tagalog.^[4]

Compilation of data for Panganiban's proposed bilingual dictionary-thesaurus took at least three decades, with the help of his advisers, Dr. Eufronio Alip and Rev. Fr. Evergisto Bazaco, Order of Preachers, as well as informants throughout the country.^[8][11]

In 1941, a year since Pilipino became a compulsory subject in country's schools,^[12] Panganiban began working on proposed dictionaries through writing a manuscript, with suggestions from Alip and Bazaco.^[8] At the start of the Japanese invasion of the country, the manuscript was evacuated in Tanauan; being moved gradually until reaching Cabuyao, Laguna in 1945 following Japanese attacks in Tanauan and Lipa,^[8] at that time through guerilla captain Remigio Maniquis^[11] who brought with him the Royal typewriter being used in the project.^[8]

In March 1942, his stepmother Fidela, her wife Consuelo, and Leonila Torres, briefly acted as advisers and consultants. Aside from Alip, four other people did so in the next two years while Panganiban was in Manila, including then INL Director Lope K. Santos, whose interview with him gave way for the major revision of the manuscript in 1944, and Julián Cruz Balmaceda. The criticisms of Dr. Brigido Carandang, who would be later killed by the Japanese, contributed in the improvements.^[8]

The work on the manuscript became more intensive after the September 1944 American bombing of Manila, when his family evacuated with the manuscript in Tanauan where he had the chance to consult what he called the natural "Tagalists",^[8] particularly in five barrios.^[11]

Four more individuals took part of the plan at the end of the war,^[11] two of them became Panganiban's advisers as the work continued in Manila in March 1945.^[8] The manuscript was finished in June, went series of revisions, and was printed twice;^[8] the first, the English–Tagalog Vocabulary, was published in 1946.^[11]

The plan then continued, with two individuals evaluating the work in progress until part of it was published in Liwayway magazine as "Talahuluganang Tagalog-Ingles" from 1953 to 1964. Ten thousand words were contributed to INL.^[11] Such dictionary was published in 1966,^[12] with 13,000 copies eventually sold out by 1970.^[11] Panganiban, as an author, stated that among approximately 30,000 Filipino word roots, some are of foreign origins, proving that a third of the words being used are loanwords.^[12]

The proposal ultimately came into reality in 1972 when the Diksyunaryo–Tesauro Pilipino–Ingles was finished.^[11]

According to KWF, the contents of Panganiban's Pilipino dictionaries are highly distinct from Serrano-Laktaw's Diccionario and the American era dictionaries, citing the developments in 1938 and in 1959 involving Tagalog.^[10]

Panganiban's scholarly publications made him one of the country's known Tagalog lexicographers. Among his contributions were:^[12]

• Fundamental Tagalog (1937)^[4]
• Ang Anim na Panahúnan ng mga Pagbadyáng Tagalog (The six conjugations of the Tagalog verb) (January 1939)^[4]
• English–Tagalog Vocabulary (1946);^[11] it is said to be an abridged form of the English–Tagalog Dictionary (1960) as well as of the English–Pilipino Thesaurus
  • English–Tagalog Thesaurus (mimeographed, 1967)
  • English–Tagalog Dictionary (1969)
• two Tagalog courses, published in 1948 and in 1965
• Talahuluganang Pilipino–Ingles (1966); it is said to be an abridged edition of Diksyunaryo–Tesauro Pilipino–Ingles^[11] (or Pilipino–Ingles Tesauro, 1972)

On the other hand, oral traditional literature, particularly folklore and epics, began to be apparent in the 1950s through The Literature of the Filipinos, edited by the Panganiban couple. A thoroughly updated version translated into Filipino, Panitkan ng Pilipinas, was edited with Genoveva Matute and Corazon Kabigting, published in 1990 and became the most widely circulated literature textbook.^[13] In 1963, Panganiban published a survey on Philippine literature based on findings with his wife.^[14]

The annual lecture, the UST Varsitarian–JVP Professorial Chair for Journalism, was established in 1999.^[2]

In expressing his love for a national language, both orally and in writing, JVP became a controversial advocate of Pilipino as the "wikang pambansa". His detractors called him "Diktador ng Wika", "High Priest of National Language", “Emperador ng Wika”, “Czar ng Purismo” and “Frankenstein ng Purismo”. On the other hand, his allies called him “Bayani ng Wikang Pambansa”. JVP was neither a dictator nor a purist. He wrote in 1970:

“Multilingualism would be a solution to our linguistic problems. It would erase colonialism.. it would eliminate regionalism.. it would create nationalism. In the mutual contact of languages, foreign and local, the most useful form of national language will surface and will become the real PILIPINO.”

Unfortunately, it was not until months after his death that the 1973 Constitution established Pilipino as one of the two official languages of the Philippines – the other being English. In 1987, the Constitution stipulated that the National Assembly was to take steps toward the formation of a genuine national language to be called Filipino, which will incorporate elements from the various Philippine languages.

The Varsitarian

• "José Villa Panganiban". Open Library. July 19, 2010. Retrieved April 3, 2024.
• JVP Professorial Chair