Repetitions and Cultural Sensitivity

My article for OpinYon Mindanao

Column: Lupa Ng Araw

31 October 2016

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A couple of weeks ago, Al Jazeera interviewed President Duterte.  There was nothing really new in that interview that this headline-hogging third world country leader has not said in his speeches, both during the campaign and in his first 100 days as the 16th president of a supposedly sovereign country.

Nothing really new -- meaning, PRRD’s (one of President Duterte's monickers) topics basically revolved around drugs, crime and corruption, albeit to different audiences.

It is said that repetition is the mother of all learning; in the same way that people who devoted at least 10,000[1] hours to what they loved to do are said to eventually become experts on it.  

The same principle also applies to TV ads being aired as often as viewers can get jaded on.  Only this time the repeated messages are not recorded.  It is The President himself talking about it as often as his audience is willing to listen. Hopefully it hammers back the message of collective good and love of country.

Those who follow these speeches closely do not anymore mind the oft-repeated topics -- but are on the edge of their seats for new, often deconstructive pronouncements.

There are some people though who are annoyed with the repetitions as if someone compelled them to listen.  It would probably help to know that these repetitions are for not for those who have already heard it, but for a) those who have not heard; and b) for those who have already heard but would not listen.

This time however, in "Talk To Al Jazeera" The President mentioned one particular new word.

At 09:01 of the interview, President Duterte says: "As orientals, we say you just be courteous.  We are not used to being bamboozled and [told]: ‘You know Mr Duterte that the serious violations could result to the cutting of aid’.  That is not acceptable to us actually.  We call it in our dialect 'buyboy'".

He grapples for its Tagalog equivalent, to which Al Jazeera Reporter Jamela Alindogan volunteers: “sumbat”.

PRRD further illustrates by saying, “You’re giving me these things[2] but [you are telling me] I am not doing what you want.  That is a very serious mistake.”

That word "buyboy" must have not registered to the other Al Jazeera Reporter Wayne Hay.  He proceeded to ask about contradictory statements among members of the government. Or at least that's how the video as it was edited seemed to convey.

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Buyboy is actually a bisaya word.  I cannot find a direct English translation of this word.  Wikapinoy defines it as “take to task”; Binisaya.com says it is the recounting of favors; and sandayong.com says it in bisaya: sudya sa nahatag nga utang kabubut-on.

It is also spoken as pamuyboy or panumboy, or the act of making buyboy.

As a true-blue bisdak (bisayang dako), I know the word by heart.  Buyboy is best described indeed as the act of counting the favors one has given to another person.  The context in which it is said is a little short of making you throw up what you ate because you have not returned the favor to the one who gave you the food.

The word itself is rarely mentioned; but the act is seen in many circumstances.  For example, teleseryes (TV series) often depict characters enumerating, usually in anger, the good things they have done or given to another person, especially when they feel their gestures of good intentions were not reciprocated the way they expected it.

Whether it reflects real life or real life imitates it depends largely on individual experiences.

What made President Duterte mention "buyboy"? Let me guess.

The 16M who catapulted him to office in a way approved his approaches of solving these festering social problems.  Judging by the negative publicity[3] a handful of newspapers and television outfits are muddling his pronouncements instead of helping its audience understand, we can say that there seems to be just one concerted effort to blast his image of being a no-nonsense problem solver.

This concerted effort not to seek clarification on President Duterte's statements seems to also affect the donor community with the way they gave veiled threats to cut off aid if he will not address the issue of extrajudicial killings.

Question: Is threatening to cut off aid the right support donor countries can give to a fellow sovereign country beset with problems of drugs, crime and corruption?  Do they really expect a no-nonsense problem solver to give in to these veiled threats just so donor money will not stop coming?

Culturally, being told in the face how benevolent they are just so we should give in to the pressure -- well, this is how we Filipinos feel: they make us want to vomit. It's a wonder if previous leaders swallowed their pride at the slightest hint of donor pullout.

Any country who claims they respect the culture and sovereignty of other nations should now start reviewing their own lofty definitions of the word "respect" because a nobody from a small nation is now telling them something in a language they have not yet encountered in the history of diplomacy.

Hopefully it's one good lesson on cultural sensitivity.

*****

Cotabato City

24 October 2016

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[1] http://gladwell.com/outliers/the-10000-hour-rule/

[2] PRRD was referring to aid

[3] https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2016/12/15/cuts-aid-package-philippines/XZ792YL8ebRiws6h16wfjO/story.html

Spam Ma Ling Adobo

My Article for Resurgent.Ph
Due 23 Oct 2016

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We had a happy discussion in one FB Group as to whether we are pro-Spam, pro-Ma Ling or pro-Adobo.

As we all know, Spam is American; Ma Ling is Chinese; and Adobo is Filipino.  Spam and Ma Ling are canned luncheon meats; while adobo is a dish made of either chicken, pork, or chicken and pork together.  These conversation pieces came up in the wake of President Duterte’s expressing his displeasure towards the way Filipinos are treated by Americans – many times on a personal level and generally at the policy level.

Although I know most of us would devour the canned meats when it is available, we chorused "pro-Adobo!" and tried to justify our answers the silliest we can.  Say, the meats of Spam and Ma Ling are trapped inside cans for months at a time; while adobo is freshly cooked.  Or, if those canned stuff are way beyond their expiry date, these are sold at big discounts just to get them off the shelves and consumers still look satisfied.  Who cares about nitrates and MSG anyway?

But someone thought adobo is a Spanish dish.  Another one thought it could be Chinese because toyo (soy sauce) is Chinese. Then one chimed it must be Filipino because both the chicken and the pork are native.  But what if the chicken is force-fed with hormones and antibiotics, much less dried innards of other animals, does that make it less native thus less Filipino? Nitpickers.

Nah. I'm sure I read somewhere that adobo is authentically Filipino.

As an afterthought, I know we cook almost everything adobo-style: kangkong, sitaw, talong, kabibe, tahong, palaka, name it.

Seriously, as I am Bisaya, the adobo I knew as a child was different from how it is now widely known.  We also say adobawo (shortcut for adobado) for i.e. adobawng tangkong, adobawng uhong etc.  But somehow the usage of adobawo has somewhat disappeared. 

Adobo to us then was actually big chunks of pork, approximately 2 inches square; parboiled in water, vinegar, salt and garlic; dripped dry and deep fried in oil until brown.  It is then sliced in bite-sized pieces and dipped in toyo-kalamansi sauce.  My father prefers it dipped in ginamos.   

Growing up in Bukidnon in the 60s and the 70s was idyllic.  We grew many things around us (we did not even call it a garden) – bananas, papayas, gabi, cassava, camote etc.  Other plants just grew on its own so we just harvested it – wild ampalaya, kangkong, bamboos, what have you.   We raised our own pigs, chickens, goats and cows too. 

Whenever Tatay slaughtered a pig, most of the meat are preserved without a refrigerator (we did not even have one until the late 70s).  Nanay would slather some of the meat in salt and packed it in wide-mouthed glass jars, and later, Tupperware – the only plastic ware I knew then.  She would smoke some; the rest became hams and sausages. 

Tatay would also cook adobo the way I described it above; and he would bury these in the same lard it was fried in.  These would then be stowed away in kerosene cans and I believe it lasted until the next pig was scheduled. 

Then we had what I say is close to the Tagalog adobo – we called it humba.  I thought it is a bisaya spelling of jumba – but there’s no such thing as jumba in google except for that balloon-like character in Lilo and Stitch.  And accordingly, there is a Chinese dish called hong-ba, which looks like the bisaya humba.  Here the pork chunks are stewed in vinegar, toyo, garlic, peppercorns and laurel leaves.  I tell you humba wiggles in a way that adobo does not.

Tatay said it was his grandfather who taught him how to handle meat – from the slaughtering to the cooking to the preservation.  This grandfather was half-Spanish who was brought to the Diocese of Cagayan de Oro and spent the rest of his life in Carcar, Cebu where he was the caretaker of the Friar Lands.  He was also a butcher (matansero) on the side.

Now going back to the pros: It’s good to know how our food evolved as it is also a significant part of how our identity as Filipinos evolved.  Would Spam, Ma Ling and adobo have figured in a nationalism-filled discussion if President Duterte did not express his utmost displeasure of America’s shabby treatment towards us as a people?

Shallow as it may seem, but I doubt it.

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