The Visayan language has always been an integral part of the Filipino culture, with over 20 million native speakers around the country. However, the Bisayan accent has been a center of mockery for many people who cannot tolerate the change in pronunciation when Visayan people speak Tagalog.

Certain instances proving accent-shaming is real are very much prevalent in the contemporary times. Some of which are done in and worsen by media. One is when the two active critic of President Duterte made fun of him in Twitter. They exactly typed words that spells out the pronunciation of the President. Raissa Robles posted on Twitter, "Duterte just now said that the communists are engaged in 'armed stragol','' on which former Benigno Aquino spokesperson Edwin Lacierda replied, "You have 'trabol' with my president’s dictionarment?" This accumulated hate as the two were insensitive and showed arrogance at the same time.

The other one is the infamous meme in facebook where a girl named Jenny starred in the American reality show called ''90 Days Fiance: Before 90 days''. It drew so much attention from the netizens mainly because of the way Jenny speaks, which is Bisaya, that affects her proper pronunciation of English words. Her statement ''You're rude,'' pronounced as 'you're road' was ridiculed by the Filipino social media audience.

Mocking Bisayan people because of their accent and word pronunciation has been a subject to people’s inside jokes, memes and even some portrayals in the media. These kinds of incidents happen because of ignorance and lack of respect to our Bisayan people.

We should stop mocking Bisayan people just because their accent is different and unusual to us. Bisayan people are unique because of their language and accent. Everyone should learn how to respect them and their cultural identity because they are not some object that we could use in making fun, they are humans like the rest of us who has feelings. We should not be ignorant on this certain matter because we are all Filipinos, we should lift up and accept everyone especially its culture to make us a whole and unified nation.

As part of the advocacy, here are some ways to combat accent-shaming:

• Stop portraying on Philippine TV shows that Visayan accent should be a subject of mockery. In that case, people who watched on TV won't assume that it is right and appropriate 
• Realize and accept that no language is inferior or superior to another 
• Be mindful of what we post online regarding shaming the Visayan accent, we might hurt others unintentionally
• Don't ever think that accent shaming is the new 'in' and 'trend' as of today
• Stop TV drama shows from showing that Visayan filipino are nothing but a house helper. So that, people from the cities won't assume that Visayan people can't do professional jobs
• Remind radio stations to prohibit their radio DJ's from using Visayan words to make a joke or say something dirty for others not to misunderstand
• Stop assuming that Visayan people are 'jejemon', 'jologs' and cannot understand and speak English 
• Don't treat Visayan people differently after finding out that they are Visaya
• Treat native Filipinos equally, Do not belittle their capabilities and talents just because they are not born as 'Tagalog' and in cities.

There are over 170 languages spoken in the Philippines. With this linguistic diversity, it is indeed inveitable to avoid conflicts. However, the key here is really just acceptance. Bisayans may speak different, but they are still one of us Filipinos.