Why Filipino Sign Language or FSL is important

May 26, 2025

Sign the Google form petition below to put FSL back into early childhood care law, and learn more below. Deadline is Thursday, May 29. Sign here: https://forms.gle/ofUzaaGxXjxebh8r8

A few years ago, I signed up for Filipino Sign Language (FSL) classes at De la Salle University and learned a lot about the challenges of being deaf in the Philippines. I learned that lower case “deaf” refers to the general populace who are deaf or hard of hearing, and that upper case “Deaf” refers to the community and culture of deaf and hard-of-hearing folks. Like how we capitalize Filipino, Bicolano, American, Dumagat, or Agta. Deaf people have a culture too.

Challenges for deaf people, and my privileges as a hearing person

As a hearing person, I always overlook the privileges I enjoy. My cousin who is deaf didn’t enjoy the same privileges growing up. He experienced discrimination from teachers, the public, and even from within his own family. It’s harder for deaf people to get jobs, even though their brains function just as fine as hearing people. The challenges for hearing people to learn a sign language are definitely barriers, but only because the status quo favors hearing people like me.

We have the choice not to learn sign language, where deaf people feel pressures to learn all kinds of methods of communication, mainly to accommodate “hearing society”. These include lip-reading or word-mouthing (give it a try, it is no easy feat), Signed Exact English or SEE or “exact-signing” (signs that match English word-for-word, and typically feels “unnatural” to deaf people), or gestures (informal or improvised signs not part of any language).

What is Filipino Sign Language, and why is it important?

The earliest documentation of sign language in the Philippines was in 1596 in Leyte. Fr. Raymundo de Prado recorded the fact that deaf people were signing. Traces of that language is likely still in use in present-day FSL. 300 years later, American Sign Language or ASL was introduced in schools for the deaf. Present-day FSL is heavily influenced by ASL, but is acknowledged as a different language.

Take for example one of the words for “hotel”. The ASL sign involves the ASL for the letter “h”, waving like a flag. This is likely connected to flags found in front of many large hotels in the US. FSL uses the same letter “h” as well, but with the hand sliding up your upper arm indicating a large building with multiple floors. This is just one of many examples I have yet to learn more about. You can see an example of “hotel” in FSL in the video below.

FSL today is based from years of input and interaction among Filipino Deaf across the country. It is the “natural language” of communication used by the majority of Deaf Filipinos. It has a grammar, syntax, and idioms that are for and by Filipino Deaf people and culture. FSL and ASL may share several similar signs due to American colonization in the Philippines, but they are indeed different in terms of grammar–phonology, morphology, and discourse.

FSL is not connected to Filipino, Tagalog, English or with any other oral or written language. Sign language is a visual language that relies heavily on imagery and concepts. Which is why alternatives such as Signed Exact English or SEE don’t make sense for Deaf people. SEE follows the structure of spoken and written languages that come natural to hearing people, not deaf people.

There are indeed regional and local sign languages, but FSL continues to push for inclusivity, and incorporates and acknowledges these differences. So far a few FSL varieties have been identified by comparing vocabulary among regional speakers. Such varieties were found in Leyte, Palawan, Bicol, and Samar. The research continues, feeding back into Filipino Sign Language, therefore it is “alive.” FSL is considered a “living language.”

FSL loses priority in a new law

On May 8, “The Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) System Act” (RA 12199) was signed into law. It attempts to address and improve on an earlier law, the “Early Years Act of 2013” (RA 10410).

The Deaf community embraces the older 2013 act because it acknowledges Filipino Sign Language for children. Unfortunately, either through a lapse in writing and/or lack of consultation, the newly passed ECCD System Act fails to consider the importance of Filipino Sign Language for young children. In fact it’s not even mentioned in the law – for some reason the words “Filipino Sign Language” were dropped entirely.

Excerpt from the Early Years Act of 2013 - RA 10410 — An excerpt from the “Early Years Act of 2013” (RA 10410), which allows for both linguistic diversity, as well as Filipino Sign Language for the deaf community.

Excerpt from the ECCD System Act - RA 12199 — Excerpts from the new “ECCD System Act” (RA 12199) expresses the need for linguistic diversity very well, but not well enough for the Deaf community. Filipino Sign Language should have stayed in the law.

At first glance, especially for hearing people, the new ECCD law looks progressive and is well-written. But the words “diversity” and “appropriate languages”, along with the absence of Filipino Sign Language in the law, allows room for disenfranchisement for young Deaf children.

It opens the door to teaching systems mentioned earlier, like Signed Exact English or SEE, word-mouthing, and gesturing. All of which do not reflect the natural way Deaf people prefer to communicate, which is maintained in Filipino Sign Language.

Dx. Rafa Domingo leads the Deaf Heritage and FSL Studies Unit at De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde in Manila. They expressed in this YouTube video that FSL is considered the “mother tongue” or L1 of deaf children, and that removing it from the new law “signifies a troubling loss of our linguistic rights.” Unfortunately there aren’t any subtitles for the video, especially since it was posted for a Deaf audience, but FSL Treasure on Facebook released another video with captions giving us additional information as to why the new law is a setback for the Deaf community.

The words in the law can serve hearing students who use different spoken and written languages in the Philippines, which is a great thing. But what is the most appropriate language for Deaf children? Without clear protection for FSL, schools could choose methods that undermine how Deaf children learn, express themselves, and connect with their culture.

The Early Years Act of 2013 (RA 10410), recognized FSL as an appropriate language for Deaf children. Together with the FSL Act in 2018 (RA 11106) these were powerful wins for Deaf Filipinos. The ECCD System Act (RA 12199) threatens to undo that inadvertently.

Sign the petition

Sign the Google form petition below and help Dx. Rafa’s team build support for FSL. Ultimately this is for the Filipino Deaf children’s right to a language that belongs to them. Deadline is Thursday, May 29.

Sign here: https://forms.gle/ofUzaaGxXjxebh8r8

Facebook video resources on Filipino Sign Language

Liberty Notarte-Balanquit, assistant professor at the Department of Humanities, UP Los Baños, shares a list of links on different topics regarding FSL, from its history to Moro culture, and more. The links go to Facebook videos from the 1st National Filipino Sign Language Summit that took place in 2001: