Students from the British School Manila (BSM) in Taguig City are helping promote and teach the use of the Filipino Sign Language (FSL), and provide assistance to the deaf.
“As a language system, Filipino Sign Language (FSL) is a mixture of unique traditional and regional signs, signs borrowed from American Sign Language (ASL) (including phonological and semantic variants), and lexicalized signs based on Manually-Coded English (MCE),” according to Liberty Notarte-Balanguit in an abstract for a session of the Philippine Indigenous Languages Lecture Series (PILLS) under the University of the Philippines Department of Linguistics.
Members of the Empowered Youth Voice (EYV) at the Philippine School for the Deaf (Ben Samirang, Jr., Rico Taduran)
Last Dec. 6, the BSM-based Empowered Youth Voice (EYV), a non-profit student organization, donated food and supplies to 96 underprivileged students staying at the Philippine School for the Deaf (PSD) dormitory who only have a P15 budget per meal.
EYV is led by Ethan Jared Chan, Grade 12, founder and CEO; Johann Chan, Grade 8, chief financial officer; Matteo Sy, Grade 11, Olympiad Math Curriculum director; Bulgaria-based Dari Amudzhieva, Olympiad Math Curriculum co-director; and Seth Yang, Grade 9, media and marketing director. They work together with Catherine Joy Patriarca, FSL deaf instructor; Leah Apuli, interpreter and FSL instructor.
EYV donated five sacks of rice, noodles, canned goods, condiments, biscuits, cooking oil, two washing machines, and four smart TVs for the classrooms from Abenson through its W and J Lim Foundation.
EYV founder and CEO Chan thanked Shery Funcion, PSD principal, and Irish Casaljay for allowing the group to partner with them.
Last Oct. 12, EYV, through the help of Imarflex, donated to PSD two water dispensers, one microwave, one oven toaster and one large rice cooker.
The donations to PSD are part of EYV’s overall Filipino Sign Language #FSLforinclusivePH initiative, which “aims to develop an increased awareness and appreciation of the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Deaf as well as bridge the language barrier between the hearing and the Deaf towards an inclusive sustainable Philippine society.”
"The heart of our advocacy is rooted on UN's SDGs and commitment to Leave No One Behind," said Chan.
He added, “I have always been fascinated with sign language. Initially, I thought it was cool because I get to communicate with my family in a secret code. It was only later on that I realized the importance of learning FSL.. of how it could be used to bridge the language gap between the Hearing and the Deaf in our community.”
(Photos: Ben Samirang, Jr., Rico Taduran)
He said it was not easy to start the advocacy, explaining, “Over the summer of last year, I did my research and made several inquiries to different deaf organizations. It was really a painstaking process as I either got no response or the organization did not have any available resource to help us. I plodded on until I met with a Deaf organization where Dr. Liza Martinez was helping out as an interpreter.”
In August 2022, Chan said they had a pilot run of the FSL program in Chosen Village, a place for abandoned children with disabilities.
“Seeing the joy and gratitude on the faces of the children was truly inspirational and provided the impetus to pursue this program and launch it as an After-School-Activity (ASA) program in my school,” he added.
“Since last school year, BSM has been supporting all school-based initiatives of the FSL ASA, shouldering the meal and transportation allowance of our Deaf teacher and interpreter, with nary a cent being charged to the students. We are truly grateful to our school, especially to our Service and Sustainability Heads, Mr. Pearson and Mr. Guinness who allowed this door of opportunity to open up for us,” he said.
In October 2022, through the organization’s FSL For Inclusive PH advocacy program, they searched for opportunities outside of school.
“Together with our Deaf teacher, Ma'am Catherine Joy Patriarca and Deaf interpreters, Ma'am Leah and Ma'am Olive, we conducted a free basic FSL class to 42 frontliners who have direct access to the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing constituents of the Antipolo City government,” he said.
Last February, they tapped 93 special education students of the University of Rizal Systems (URS) to learn FSL and held a series of online FLS classes from March to May.
“I believe that It is sometimes through daily life interactions that inspiration strikes. Such was the case when I was in a restaurant in BGC with our Deaf teacher and a service crew made a comment about wanting to learn FSL so he could better serve them. I thought hard about this and decided to write a letter to the president of one of the biggest fast-food chains in the Philippines on the off-chance that the company might be willing to take a gamble on me and accept my proposal to introduce Deaf Awareness/Sensitivity and FSL training to their company. There was no reply. I decided to send one more follow-up email,” he said.
While Chan was in Harvard for a summer course, he finally got a reply from a representative of the company.
“Since, my birthday was coming up then, I decided to do a weekend trip to Gallaudet University, one of the oldest deaf schools in America to see if there are any educational innovations that they have in place that we could apply in our country,” he said.
In Washington, D.C., Chan visited a Starbucks signing store that was fully manned by Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing employees.
“From research to data analysis, even requesting for statistics from DepEd [Department of Education[ through eFOI, consultation with national Deaf advocacy groups, planning and scheduling and documenting simulation runs with Deaf volunteers as well as preparing FSL materials for presentation to the company's board of directors, it has been a whirlwind of activities, conducting FSL proof-of-concept study and preparing training videos for their service crew," he said.
Last September, they celebrated the International Day of Sign Language (IDSL) at BSM and with student-teachers of the University of Rizal System.
“We hope to continue raising awareness about the Deaf and the need to learn and share love for FSL. Did you know that there are politically correct ways to call the Deaf? Deaf with a capital ‘D’ refers to the cultural identity, empowerment and pride of sign language which belongs to the Deaf people while deaf with small ‘d’ refers to people who became hard of hearing or deaf later in their lives and may or may not know sign language,” he explained.
Chan explained that “Deaf does not mean Dumb. While doing my research, I discovered and e-introduced myself to a Filipino-Chinese Gallaudet alumna, Anna Lim who is a Deaf lecturer in Boston University making waves in Deaf immigration studies. It was truly inspirational to see a Filipina Deaf breaking barriers and stereotypes in the academe.”
“Deaf are not mute. I met Ma'am Rack Corpuz, the first woman president of the Philippine Federation of the Deaf and was surprised that she not only lip-read and speak really-well but her intelligence and kindness shines out really well. It is important that these stereotypes be broken to avoid any cultural misunderstanding and discrimination to be levied against the Deaf. FSL is a way a life and their main means of communication, hence, it should not be made into objects of ridicule,” he said.
Chan noted the disappointing results of the 2022 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) report, which measured literacy levels of 15-year-olds among 79 countries,
“Philippines still lags behind against world benchmarks in the field of math, as well as science and reading. Being a math enthusiast, my personal dream is to be able to launch a national math Olympiad program for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing to build their interest and passion for math that goes beyond textbook or rote memorization, developing resiliency and creativity in problem-solving that they could apply in their daily lives,” he said.
Last October, EYV was planning to conduct an introductory class on math Olympiad.
“However, when I learned about the Philippine School for the Deaf (PSD) dorm students being allocated only P15 per meal budget, I knew I had to do something. How could students focus on their academic work when their very basic need for food is not being met?” he said.
He narrated, “We launched Phase 1 of our fund-raising campaign in October, with the donation turn-over coinciding with our planned Introduction to Math Olympiad training for senior high school students. For this phase, we were able to donate 5 sacks of rice and various food items. Additionally, we were able to get Imarflex as our major sponsor, donating water dispensers, microwave, rice cooker and oven toaster.”
From November to Dec. 6, EYV had a food drive and supplies requisition campaign for the dormitory students of PSD.
“We sent letters to corporate and individual sponsors who went beyond and above our expectations. We are truly grateful to BSM and all our friends, family members, advocates, most specially to W and J Lim Foundation (Abenson) who donated four smart TVs (two of which are 65-inches) and two washing machines. With McDonald’s co-sponsoring the food for the teachers and dorm students, we were able to hold a fun-filled mini-Christmas party, allowing our team to have a deeper personal interaction with the deaf students,” he said.
Chan said EYV has “other projects in the pipeline which we hope would help make a difference, particularly in the lives of our Deaf youth.”
“In addition to the competitive math program which we are currently developing, we continue promoting FSL to the community at large as we launch our ‘Road to 1000 FSL Learners’ campaign on or before the end of this academic year,” he said.
He added, “We hope to further spread our love and awareness for FSL and promote diversity, inclusion and equality in our society. Oprah Winfrey said, ‘I believe there's a calling for all of us. I know that every human being has value and purpose. The real work of our lives is to become aware. And awakened. To answer the call.’ We hope that through our FSL advocacy work, we could inspire other youth leaders to answer the call to become change-makers and positive transformation enablers..to empower others, make a difference and transform the lives of the Filipino people.”
“Our FSL journey… bridging worlds together, one sign at a time,” according to Chan.
He added, "Together, let's join hands as we try to create a ripple of change towards an inclusive and transformative PH society. Send a message to [email protected] for inquiries on free Basic FSL and/or Deaf Awareness Training. Like and follow us at our FB page fsl4iph or our website fsl4iph.org."