Welcome to bilingual hell
August 30, 2003 | 12:00am
AM radio blares even when the volume is down. Mike Enriquez is whipping another issue into a froth. Senator Ping Lacson in a privileged speech accused First Gentleman Mike Arroyo of corruption. "In the interest of fairness" Mike Enriquez is now getting a statement from Mike Arroyo’s spokesperson, Ms. Bunye-Roxas who is also Secretary Bunye’s daughter. I half-listen. This is not as interesting to me as Trillanes before the Feliciano Commission. Then suddenly, I hear Mike Arroyo’s spokesperson say "kaysa naman yakyak siya ng yakyak. . ."
More than a week ago, I heard Trillanes tell Atty. Mario Ongkiko that the President of the Republic "kept on yakking." Now I finally get it. "Yakking" is English for yakyak ng yakyak. How interesting! I don’t think yakyak exists in classical Tagalog. Neither does yak exist in classical English, unless it’s a hairy animal found in Tibet. Yak in English is an abbreviation of yakkety-yak (slang). It must have sneaked into someone’s air miles and landed in vernacular Pilipino where apparently it means the same thing. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the miracle of bilingual education. We no longer know when we are speaking English or Tagalog or Taglish.
The Oakwood rebels or mutineers or whatever they are called don’t like the Feliciano Commission not because they’re not a fact-finding body but because they cannot make themselves understood in that forum. They do not speak the same language. Ongkiko was trying to determine what specifically happened in the private meeting between Trillanes and the President. Trillanes said that when he told her his grievances she "did not listen. She was arrogant." Ongkiko was appalled by this discourtesy and I was pleased to note that he was. In his generation, people still respect authority, therefore, he admonished Trillanes to respect the President of the Republic who was also the military’s Commander-in-Chief. Trillanes could not understand or appreciate this point of view. He just led what looked like a coup d’etat. He meant to overthrow authority. He must have had little respect for it to begin with. Asking him to respect the President at this point in history was tantamount to asking someone who had just committed matricide if he loved his mother.
Because Trillanes did not understand and therefore did not come up with solid answers, Ongkiko probed further. What did the President do? Trillanes said, "She just kept on yakking." Ongkiko was appalled again. He warned Trillanes again then repeated the question as Trillanes also repeated, "She kept on yakking." Ongkiko changed strategy, tried to help, "Use only nouns and verbs. Do not use adjectives or adverbs." I threw a towel at the radio. "He doesn’t know what adjectives and adverbs are," I said aloud. "Send him to me, I’ll teach him." But of course they couldn’t hear me. I learned that when I was six and my Daddy was interviewed on radio. I looked and looked for him inside it but he wasn’t there.
The Feliciano Commission hearings on the Oakwood Incident proved that the younger generation cannot communicate with the older generation even when they think they are speaking the same language. The stenography machines mandated the use of English. Mario Ongkiko’s English was not the same as Trillanes’. In that investigation we also saw that language is more than words. It is culture and values. I agree wholeheartedly with Ongkiko that even when we criticize, we must use respectful language. This used to be known as civility, the mark of a civil society. Now however, civil society means something else. I think it means "supporter of EDSA 2 who now regrets it" but I am not sure. So if the meaning of civil society has blurred, then the meaning of civility would also get fuzzy, wouldn’t it? Maybe we should explore other words. Magandang asal or exemplary behavior? No, not relevant to revolution old or new. How about urbanidad or urbanity? That would at least have something to do with Oakwood.
No, Trillanes adamantly protested, refusing to be respectful it seemed but really he was at a loss for words. Demonstrators say what’s on their mind, he said. They don’t care that it’s against the President of the Republic. Good point. He grew up watching the Ibagsak Generation on TV. They split eardrums, raised strident voices, plucked accusations out of thin air. Their language bore no nuance or respect, sometimes not even substance, but they got good TV coverage. We all saw or heard how the gap between the generations in that investigation unfortunately was not bridged.
How language separates us now! On the one hand, better-educated Filipinos with a profound sense and need for the appropriate. On the other, younger Filipinos, brusque, impatient, raised when the educational system was deteriorating and the street was becoming a legitimate forum for discontent. They speak English but it is not the same as ours. Their Pilipino is not our Tagalog. All our languages, including our dialects, divide and alienate us. How do we understand each other? More to the point, what do we do about this?
For many, the solution has been to pack up and forsake this country then learn what they speak out there, usually what Ongkiko and the Feliciano Commission speak. We don’t mind going elsewhere and disciplining ourselves to follow what foreigners require us to do but we won’t do it here in our own country. We don’t want to bow our heads in respect and humility before another Filipino. Is this one more congenital defect of the colonized?
I hate it when I get an insight like this so early, ruins the rest of my day. Maybe I should just go out there and volunteer to translate between generations – not from English to English but from old to young. Would I need accreditation? Could that become a legitimate profession? No, maybe I should just stop listening to AM radio. That’s more actionable and offers a higher success rate.
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