Last night, I read the now famous -- wait, now infamous -- column by Mr. James Soriano, courtesy of one of my friends' linked post. After reading it, maybe for the sheer disbelief, I read it again. Lo and behold, I read every word of Mr. Soriano right the first time: yes, Victoria, the Filipino language, as Mr. Soriano puts it, is for the street people, for the "masa," and for the uneducated. I even thought that Mr. Soriano had a better term for the "streetwise" Filipinos: the unlearned.
For a few minutes, I turned red (well, I didn't really because I am not mestizo; I am very Filipino -- no pun intended). I swear, if only I had mutant powers, I could have transformed myself into the likes of Incredible Hulk or Wolverine (one person could attest to that) and clobbered this arrogant, pathetic creature (by the way, I looked at his Facebook account, and if indeed he IS the same Soriano, I have this to say: Tsong, you neither look “learned” nor “privileged”; you look more like Rowan Atkinson).
Apparently, I was helpless. All I could maneuver was a minute act of simultaneously liking and commenting on the linked post. I even expressed that I would be re-posting the link. I did but my comments were not fully published because of their length so I decided to write a note instead; hence, this.
Okay. So, if you're one of those "street" people who aren't comfy with conversational English (stuttering and pausing for 3 seconds to think of supplicating words) or who had "Tagalog-ized" cartoons for afternoon delights during their pubescent years ("Cedie, Ang Munting Prinsipe" or "Princess Sarah," anyone?), sorry na lang, but Mr. James Soriano thinks you're not "privileged" and "learned" enough.
Well, if being "privileged" and "learned" requires adulating a "foreign" language whose "congenital" usage and "perceived" mastery are whimsically passed off as staples of status (although some of these "privileged" and "learned" people -- gods and goddesses of self-conceit -- look more garish than their "kanto-loving" counterparts), I'd rather be less fortunate and uneducated.
The actuality is, contrary to Soriano’s delusions, we, Filipinos, have an identity. Yes, we do have that; the problem is it's just not made of fortress walls, but of Christmas lights with buttons rivaling that guy named Jack of a place called "All Trades." Our identity as a Filipino people has been sold, resold, haggled, retailed and subjected to all sorts of exchange that at the end of every marketing day, we either turn out as unripe or slightly burnt (racist tirade!) Americans, rough-heeled Europeans or pseudo-romanticized Latinos. Our very identity as Filipinos is either overpowered or marred by our inferiorities or insecurities that we are sometimes – or usually – paragons of identity crises (yes, they are not limited to sexuality). Is this due to history, media or what-have-you? You choose.
The funny thing is, the supposed “privileged” and “learned” people – those who were allegedly born with silver spoons carved from the plains of Mount Olympus or Mount Apo or the clubhouse in Ayah-lah, Alah-bhang (intonation, please) and those who had no idea of who, for the sake of hors d’oeuvres, Panchito is – also have the same infraction that their un-“privileged” and un-“learned” co-citizens possess: they also try painstakingly to belong. Some of them (this is not faulty generalization) choose to be identified with people, things, culture, and, yes, language commonly identified with the first world countries of North America and of Europe (just not Filipino, puh-lease) just because they are, well, subjectively better in every sense of the word: better looking, economically better, culturally better, and historically better. Better, better, better, and just better.
These supposed “privileged” and “learned” people detest, if not abhor, being recognized with the so-called majority of the confused and beggared denizens of the third world that is the Philippines. As a result, the use of the "foreign" language has been crafted by these people (who are wholly Filipinos, save for their discriminate tongues) as an unwavering announcement of perceived elitism and an affront to anything considered of lesser lineage.
Come to think of it, a considerable number of Filipinos – the ones using Tagalog or any other local dialect, the non-English – try hard to be "sosyal," while the "learned" Filipinos try hard to be "social." The former try to sound more well-off than the rest of the third world while the latter try to sound at par with the posh that is of the first world. Common denominator: both try TOO hard. So, we (a big number of Filipinos) are all "second-rate, trying hard copycats" in one way or another.
Anyhow, so much for my raging piece of ranting pie. Uuwi na ako kasi alas-s’yete na at may naghihintay sa’kin. Tatawid ako sa kalye at maghihintay sa kanto ng dyip; magsasabi sa drayber ng “bayad po”; at magbabanggit ng “para po” ‘pag bababa na. Abogado ako at galing sa pamilya na masasabi ko namang hindi pinagkaitan. Sa tingin ko, edukado at nakakaangat naman ako kahit papaano pero, ginagamit ko pa rin ang Filipino.
(Postscript: I should have used Filipino for me to be more convincing. Well, I guess, Mr. Soriano is right after all. Where’s my identity? :p)
