Binibining Janina and her majesty's 'Living English'

So-called ‘English communication skills experts’ in the Philippines are having a field day mocking the newly crowned Binibining Pilipinas-World, Janina San Miguel.  I must admit that I too cringed at the thought of her representing the Philippines in the world's oldest and biggest beauty pageant to be held in October this year. The video clip of her Q and A during the pageant is of course the current object of mockery and derision among (pwede bang amongst para beauty pageant patty?) Filipinos back home and in diaspora.

While struggling to write my analysis and discussion for my independent research project, I thought of scribbling down my two cents worth on this matter (which is embarrassingly of great importance to people who regard pageants as part of their communal dreaming!):

Well, Janina San Miguel’s utterance is what some applied linguists would call ‘living English’. I’d say it is an example of English in use by ‘subalterns’ or ‘postcolonial subjects’.  At best, it is a modest form of resistance against the colonial tongue (I kind of loved it when she maintained her poise and exuded that annoying smugness – or should I call it chutzpah? – after her last clause, ‘…but I said dot (with emphasis) my pamily is the most important persons (very alliterative!) in my (with matching prolonged diphthong [ai]) life’). Janina has disturbingly ‘recontextualized’ English – has ‘colonized’ it so to speak – to the consternation of those who adhere to the unstable notion that there is only one way of speaking English, and that is, by using the Standard World English (which is a very contentious construct anyway.).

I would have loved, though, to see a more radical form of resistance in Binibining Pilipinas Beauty Pageant which seems to put a lot of premium on English speaking skills (On the contrary, international beauty pageants do not necessarily require English proficiency. The last two Miss Universe winners – from Puerto Rico and Japan – had atrocious English skills when they won. Puerto Rico’s English was horrible in her interview clip in the Miss U website but she won, anyway. She spoke Spanish on the pageant night.).I would have been very impressed if the 17-year old Janina spoke in Taglish or used code meshing the way Binibining Pilipinas World Marilen Espino did in the national pageant in 1992. That would have been very ‘revolutionary’ of Janina. And that would have been, to my mind, permissible since she is not in the context of an English classroom with an English teacher warped in shaky paradigms of second language teaching. Hahahaha!

I guess Janina just didn’t have the presence of mind or didn’t have the character to rock the ‘establishment’ during the pageant. Seriously, Janina should just have been given the first-runner up honors because that means she can still compete in the future and be better prepared for the Q and A. Or she should have just been given a Binibining Pilipinas International title since Miss International just requires delegates to present prepared speeches during the pageant. But then, the decision has been made and whether ‘English-loving’ Filipinos like it or not, she is going to represent the Philippines in Miss World in Ukraine (barring unforeseen circumstances, of course). She is one lucky bi…girl!

Go Janina! Go for Miss World! You have my support (as if it mattered.)! Hahaha!