Good verbs are values

CEBU, Philippines - The day I learned this year’s theme for Buwan ng Wika, I wondered what it really meant.  Honestly!  I tried to ask a couple of people if they understand it and I always got answers like “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure.”

Some even think there’s something lacking in the theme: a word or more words.  As with all themes through the years, this one stirred me up a bit.  Maybe because I didn’t understand it right away, despite repeated sightings on bulletin boards.  I saw busy students putting decorations to: WIKA NATIN ANG DAANG MATUWID, a day before August.  But compared to the previous month where they put pictures of vegetables, milk, eggs, fruits, and fish around the theme, the decorations for this month’s theme are limited to silhouettes of a quill and an open book, which only leaves it all the more vague to any student or faculty or parent passing by.  My question is: does the scarcity of decorations or pictures or drawings around this month’s theme only proves the fuzziness that seems to surround it?

For a week, I’d go home trying to understand the minds of those who formulated it.  As I conversed with my colleagues, I realized they too were having a hard time extracting the meaning.  While I’m discussing a particular lesson with my students in the classroom, the theme’s enigma would just pop out.  What does it really mean?  What exactly did they mean when they finally decided to send it to schools all over the country?  The answer to the basic question “what does it mean?” dawned on me in the most unlikely place— public CR. 

The writings above the urinals (obviously written by the lady outside who collects 2 pesos for the use of the CR) reads: “PALIHUG BUBU-I UG TUBIG HUMAN UG GAMIT.”(Please flush with water after use).  Bang!  I’ve just been shot, somebody help me!  The inscription written in the vernacular or dialect seems to possess a certain kind of power that will really make you think twice if you’re gonna flush or not.  Of course you always have the option not to, since you have your free will and besides I don’t think there’s CCTV camera inside that public CR.  But mind you, after a second of weighing your options, it may be against your will, but brother you will bend to fill that dipper with water and flush.  And if you go out of that public CR without flushing, you are only making the inscription become more powerful because even if you’re already inside the jeepney or tricycle, it will haunt you like the other petty crimes that you may have committed so far.  It will hit you like a last song syndrome.  With this experience, I realized that language has power enough to make you walk on the right path.  Remember that!  Therefore, I came to conclude that there is nothing lacking in this month’s theme WIKA NATIN ANG DAANG MATUWID because it’s really true: language when properly used and paid attention to, always brings out the good in people.  What is lacking, I believe is the will to follow it.  The meaning may be obscured at first look, but mind you, whoever formulated this theme, always had the country’s moral recovery as top priority at the back of his or her mind.  Thank you mam, sir!

Let me now tour you around the city so you will see the words written in our own language or dialect which we (that includes me) most of the time don’t pay attention.  Result is embarrassment (lifetime or temporary), accident, or total disaster.

AYAW PANGIHI DINHING DAPITA (Do not urinate here).  I’ve seen many boys and men trying to find just enough cover (tree trunk, post, rear of car, or a darker part of a wall) doing this.  Yes, you might achieve success at first but what if the next time you do it somebody you know inside a speeding or stopping jeepney or car sees you and screams out your name?  All the other passengers turn to look at you.  What will you do?  Smile?  If you’re caught on CCTV, you might even also embarrass your family.  And if you are a married man and have children looking up to you, you will embarrass them too.  And if you’re a teacher like me and one of your students sees you doing your thing like an animal marking his territory, will you still be a good example to them? 

MALATA, DI MALATA (Biodegradable, Non-Biodegradable).  Before, it was in English.  Now it’s already in our own dialect because the authorities thought we would better understand the reason why we have to segregate our garbage.  But how far have we been so faithful in segregating our garbage into these categories?  We simply throw them anywhere we like.  I salute the garbage collectors who really don’t touch unsegregated garbage.  Haha! Poor you!  Go on with your laziness and soon you’ll end up sleeping on a mountain of your own garbage.  I think for as long as we don’t respect the words written in trash bins around or the reminders of our friendly garbage collectors to segregate it, we will still be the same city as before.  In fact, I predict, we will not only be the same but will get even worse over time.  Wonder why we get floods so often in some parts of the city?  Garbage, my friend.  Garbage.  They always clog the drains.  How many times should our teachers remind us about this? 

SINSILYO LANG SA BUNTAG (Only coins in the morning).  Many things can happen if you don’t prepare coins for the fare as you embark on a jeepney.  One is you will ask the other passengers if they have coins for your 100 or 500 peso bill.  If they don’t have, you’ll ask the driver to just stop by a gasoline station as if the station always has coins ready for you.  And as if there’s always gasoline station along the way.  The driver gets mad he’ll have to tell you to leave.  So you leave and lost minutes in waiting for another jeepney or in looking for a 24 hour store or carenderia where you can buy breakfast and have your bill changed.  Then the rain pours all of a sudden so you’re not only late for work, you’re also drenched.  Another thing that can happen in this scenario is you realize you don’t have coins so you just keep quiet and will not hand any fare at all to the driver. Careful because some drivers are very alert. They know who’s not paying and once you’re busted, better run as fast as you can. Drivers always place underneath their seats things like an iron bar, a tire wrench, a screw driver or a set of pliers.  Don’t allow them to use these things on you.  Last scenario could be that the driver will not find out your little crime until he’s a few meters away from your drop zone.  He looks at you in the side mirror and remembers you have been doing this many times with him.  You’re the one he’s been waiting for all this time.  If you don’t want to hurt him again, better explain to him politely why you’re not able to pay.  Pray!

DI PWEDE MAGDALA UG AMIGO OR AMIGA SULOD SA KWARTO (Boy friends or girl friends are not allowed inside the room).  There are dorms in the city with rules too tight or too loose.  “I will kill you” normally is the dismayed remark of a parent upon learning her daughter’s pregnancy.  Then she will be told to leave the house: “you are a disgrace to this family!”  If you don’t want your parent to get a heart attack please heed this warning, normally hanged at the gates or hallways of dorms or rooms for rent.  Do not plan to sneak in.  Do not listen to your boyfriend or girlfriend because once you’re in that room, anything can happen.  You may reason: “but sir we’re many in the room.  We’re just celebrating a friend’s birthday.”  Yes but once you’re drunk with the smuggled bottles of brandy or strong beer, your guards drop and you can’t resist the temptation.  Whoever says alcohol is from the devil?  If anything happens to you, don’t blame the alcohol or the party but yourself.  After all, you are always entitled to choose which course of action you are going to take when confronted with a dilemma. 

If you are very observant, you will find even more words written in our own Cebuano language around the city that are supposed to lead us on the right path, as this month’s theme, WIKA NATIN ANG DAANG MATUWID relentlessly reminds us.  I guess you have seen AYAW IPATUNG IMONG TIIL SA LUDHANAN (Do not place your feet on the kneeler) or AYAW PATAKA UG PANGLUWA (Don’t spit anywhere) as you roam the city. 

One thing I learned just lately is that words are not meant to limit our freedom as persons.  Words are meant to free us from all our selfish desires so we become socially responsible, caring and loving individuals just as God designed us from the very start.  Hence, if we only heed the written words, like the ones I mentioned above, we will come to conclude that good verbs are really values and bad verbs are vices.  What will bring you walking on the right path?  Good verbs, my friend.  (FREEMAN)