Tuesday, January 31, 2012

City council to use Waray-waray dialect in weekly sessions

TACLOBAN CITY – The city council here had started using the native tongue of Waray-waray during their weekly session, to ensure that they would be easily understood by the people of this city.

The use of mother tongue was proposed after the members of the city council noticed that some barangay officials in the city have difficulty in crafting their ordinances.

“Ordinances in barangays are originally drafted in Winaray language, but when it is time to submit it in the city council, they need to be translated into English language and that is the time that the officials in the barangay faces problem because sometimes they can’t find the right English word to the local language that we are using,” Councilor Niel Glova explained.

“We can understand that they wanted to say in their ordinances but the problem is we can’t dictate them on the terms or words that they wanted to use in their proposed ordinances,” he added.

Glova added that the move to use the local dialect was also to ensure that listeners and observers of their session will understand their discussions.

Councilor Jerry Yaokasin added that since the Department of the Interior and Local Government had been urging barangay officials in the country to always craft ordinances, it should also issue a memorandum urging the local officials to use their mother tongue in an crafting ordinance.

“If the officials will craft it in Leyte-Samarnon language they might not have difficulty in making ordinances,” Yaokasin explained.

He added that even in the city council, they have members who cannot express clearly and fluently what they wanted to say during their discussions.

Yaokasin added that although they will be using Winaray in their session, English words will still apply once they will use technical terms that has no corresponding local terms.

To ensure that they will have better discussion using the local language both councilors said that an expert in Winaray language is to be tapped by the members of the city council.

However, although the councilors are open and had already started using the mother tongue in their session, the agenda that is to be provided to them will remain in English.

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