By Anna Mae Lamentillo.
As I conduct a language audit of Metro Manila, I am struck by a paradox. This metropolis is home to at least 217 languages, a figure that grows with every new community I encounter. Yet some of the Philippines’ Indigenous and regional languages are fading before our eyes.
As a member of the Karay-a ethnolinguistic group, I know what disappears when a language weakens. We lose words, along with songs, rituals, humor, ecological knowledge, family histories, and ways of seeing the world. When a language falls silent, an archive burns without smoke.
This is not only a cultural emergency. It is a democratic one.
Democracy depends on citizens understanding what is being done in their name. Journalism helps people evaluate leaders, follow public spending, prepare for disasters, defend their rights, and join debate. But information is not genuinely public when it is available only in languages many citizens do not fully command.
The Philippines, with roughly 117 million people, is home to around 175 living Indigenous languages, dozens of which are endangered. Yet Filipino and English dominate education, government, and mass media. From classrooms to courtrooms, these languages often determine who can participate confidently and who must struggle through unfamiliar vocabulary.
The imbalance sends a clear message: local languages belong at home, while the languages of power belong in public life.
That message has consequences.
A farmer may hear about a new agricultural policy without understanding its technical terms. An Indigenous community may receive news about mining or land disputes in a language that fails to express its relationship with the land. During typhoons, health emergencies, or elections, unclear information can become dangerous. People may turn instead to rumours or misleading social media posts that speak more directly to them.
Journalism in local languages helps close this democratic gap. It does more than translate reports produced in Manila word for word. It allows journalists to ask different questions, recognize local priorities, and explain national events through community experience. Reports in Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Waray, Ilocano, Kapampangan, or Kinaray-a can carry meanings and concerns that disappear in a standardized national version.
This conviction is why I founded Paraluman News. I wanted to help build journalism that does not require communities to abandon their language, identity, or experience before entering the public conversation. Paraluman News rests on a simple belief: access to information should not depend on whether someone speaks the language of institutions, elites, or major newsrooms. Journalism must enter communities, listen carefully, and communicate in ways people recognize as their own.
This is also a question of who will shape the future of Philippine media. Young Filipinos are often treated only as audiences or users of technology. But they can become reporters, translators, editors, community historians, and media innovators. They already move across languages, platforms, and cultural spaces. They know how a story can travel from a barangay conversation to a group chat, a podcast, or a national debate.
With training, trust, and resources, young people can lead the revival of local language journalism. They can record the stories of elders, produce news videos in regional languages, build digital archives, and explain public policy in forms their communities can use. They can show that a mother tongue is not a barrier to modernity, but a source of authority, creativity, and connection.
Metro Manila reveals the promise and peril of multilingual life. In markets, schools, and online spaces, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Chavacano, Hokkien, Taglish, and many other languages meet and evolve. But migration creates pressure to abandon the mother tongue. Regional accents are mocked as provincial, and speakers learn to flatten the musical contours of home in order to sound acceptable.
Newsrooms can reinforce this hierarchy or challenge it. They should invest in reporters, editors, broadcasters, and community correspondents who work in local and Indigenous languages. This work should be part of daily public interest journalism, not an occasional heritage feature. Community radio, regional newspapers, podcasts, and digital channels deserve sustained support. Universities should also train multilingual journalists.
Supporting local language journalism is not simply a cultural project. It is an investment in informed citizenship, public trust, and equal participation. A democracy cannot claim to include everyone while requiring millions of people to leave their strongest language at the door.
On World News Day, we should remember that the right to know includes the right to understand. Journalism fulfills its democratic purpose only when people can hear the truth, question power, and imagine their future in a language that feels like their own.
Anna Mae Lamentillo, Founder: Paraluman News, The Philippines
This opinion piece was commissioned to mark World News Day, on 28 September.
Free to republish or translate in full, provided translations remain faithful to the original meaning. Minor edits for length or house style are permitted on the same basis.