My article for OpinYon Mindanao
Column: Lupa Ng
Araw
31 October 2016
*****
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.
* * * * *
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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