FilAms referring to the Philippines as the acronym PI while they are calling homelanders for the use of Filipinx and Pinxy is peak irony. That is without adding these two facts: the letter F is a loaned letter in Tagalog from the oppressors (and its corresponding phoneme too) and that the demonym is an appellation to Felipe II of Spain. And for someone like me who reads and writes in Baybayin since age 15, to write a Baybayin X seems like a dark humor scene in a Taika Waititi comedy. (Yes, I do Baybayin shiz for fun, but not as serious as Kristian Kabuay and NordenX.)
I first encountered PI among FilAms during Christmas vacation 2002 in LA; and Pilipinx when I joined the theatrical production of a FilAm musical at CalState East Bay in 2016. I understand that it is their culture and I respect it, and I assimilate. I easily assimilate with what I call my Nickelodeon voice, which I have acquired from when jailbroken cable services became a thing in Mega Manila and through my theatre background. But when in Rome, we live the Roman way, so as the Santa Mesa-born foreigner, I have to hide that dark laughter every single time someone uses PI.
But of course, 2020 had to make us see PI-using FilAms pressuring homelander to use Filipinx, citing political correctness and gender neutrality (while white American Pemberton, the killer of Filipino transwoman Jennifer Laude, was given an absolute pardon by Duterte).
So, let us start my TEDtalk.
P.I. is a colloquial acronym for Putanginamo (the equivalent of Fuck You) used by conservative Filipinos who probably are only retelling a story.
Tsismosa 1: “Minura ni Aling Biring si Ka Boying.” (Aling Biring cursed Ka Boying)
Tsismosa 2: “Oh? Ano ika?” (Really? What did she say?)
Tsismosa 1: “Malutong at umaatikabong PI.” (A hard and surging PI.)
Then I imagine PI as the curse when FilAms say some sentences:
“Are you flying back to Putangina?”
“I miss Putangina. We went to Boracay.”
“Duterte is President of Putangina.”
But it’s fine with me. I understand they mean well and I know that Americans, as first world as they are, have poor grasp of history. It’s a little sad though that FilAms have not always been reminded of this special footnote in the history of the United States:
P.I. stands for Philippine Islands. That’s the colonial name of the Philippines as a commonwealth republic under the United States, which the republic stopped using when the 1935 Constitution was enacted in 1946. Yes, in case people are forgetting, the Philippines has long been a state with full sovereignty recognized by the United Nations (of which we are a founding member of and wherein Carlos Romulo served as President) and recognized by Shaider Pulis Pangkalawakan.
Also, RP is used to refer to the Republic of the Philippines before the use of the standard two-letter country code PH.
I’m not saying FilAms should stop using PI to refer to the Philippines but I’m saying that the roots of that practice is from American oppression that homelanders have already cancelledttt.
Our oldest bank in the Philippines is BPI. It stands for Bank of the Philippine Islands, originally named El Banco Español Filipino de Isabel II because it was founded during Queen Isabella II’s reign. It was a public bank by then; perhaps comparable to the Federal Reserve. Upon its privatization during the American occupation, the bank started using BPI for the sake of branding because it was the Americans who christened us with P.I. (I have a theory that Manila was a character in Money Heist because the Royal Mint of Spain used to have a branch in the Philippines and operated very closely with BPI. And my other supernatural theory is that our translation of peso which is ‘piso’ affects our economy. ‘Piso’ means ‘floor’ or ‘flat’ in Spanish.)
Now, going back. To me, P.I. is more appropriate an acronym for the ethnic group of Pacific Islanders. I don't think I need to explain further why. These would be the natives of Hawai’i, Guam, Tuvalu, Kiribati, and other islands in the Oceania continent, and maybe even New Zealand. If a curious FilAm raises a question of whether Filipinos are Pacific Islanders or Asians or Hispanics, the answer is long but easy to understand.
The Filipinos live in a group of islands within the Pacific Plate. The Philippines is an Asian country, following conventions of geopolitical continental borders from the other. We are Hispanics by virtue of being under Spain for three fucking centuries. And Teresita Marquez is Reina Hispanoamericana because why not? (We could’ve been a part of America still if not for the efforts of Quezon.) So, the quick answer is that the Filipino is all of it.
Yes, the Filipinos have an affinity with the Pacific through nature and geography. Think of the earthquakes, volcanoes, flora and fauna, and the coconuts. And they even look like us. The earlier inhabitants of the archipelago were Pacific Islanders who were introduced to Hinduism and Buddhism as being closer to the cradles of civilization India and China. Then, the Islamic faith has grown along with the rise of the kingdoms and polities in Southeast Asia. The Spaniards arrived in the archipelago, to an already civilized Islamic polity - too civilized that they understood how diplomacy is necessary in war. We knew that it resulted to the defeat and death of Magellan who was fighting for Rajah ‘Don Carlos’ Humabon. Then came the 333 years of being under Spain AND (sic) the Catholic Church which made us more Hispanic. Our Austronesian/Malayo-Polynesian languages (Tagalog, Bisaya, Kapampangan, Ilocano, Bikol, Waray, Cuyonon, etc.) have kept our Asian identity intact - unlike Latin American countries where the official language of each is one of the Romance languages; thus "Latin".
(It is only towards the end of that 333-year Spanish rule that the 'Filipino' emerged to be something the oppressed could claim, and for that we thank the poet in Jose Rizal. I see a parallel in how Christians claimed the cross, the former symbol of criminals in Jewish tradition, to become the symbol of God’s love and salvation through Jesus. Wow. That’s so UST of me. Lol.)
You add into the mix that our diaspora is so large and identifiable, the data gatherers decided to mark the tables with “Filipino” - too Asian to be Hispanic and Pacific, too Pacific to be Hispanic and Asian, and too Hispanic to be Asian and Pacific.
What many FilAms do not realize everyday is that unlike the words Blacks, Latinx, Asians, or Pacific Islanders, or Hispanics, the word Filipino is not just a word denoting an ethnic group. At its highest technical form, the word Filipino is a word for the citizenship of a sovereign nation, enshrined in the constitution of a free people whose history hinges on the first constitutional republic in Asia.
By state, we mean a sovereign nation and not a federal state. (Well, even with Chinese intervention, at the very least we try.)
By state, we mean we are a people with a national territory, a government, and a legal system inspired by the traditions of our ancestors and oppressors. It may be ugly, but it is ours, and we have the power to change it.
This one may be as confusing as Greek-Grecian-Greco-Hellenic-Hellene, but let’s examine the word 'Filipino' further when placed side by side with related words.
*Pilipinas is the country; official name: Republika ng Pilipinas. It is translated into English as “Philippines”; official name: Republic of the Philippines. Spanish translates it into “Filipinas”, the Germans “Philippinen”, the French “Les Philippines”, the Italians “Filippine”.
*Pilipino refers to the people. It is translated into English as Filipino. The plural forms are ‘mga Pilipino’ and ‘Filipinos’.
*Philippine is an English adjective relating to the Philippines, commonly used for official functions. It may be used as an alternative to the other western adjective ‘Filipino’ but the interchangeability is very, very nuanced. Filipino people not Philippine people. Filipino government and Philippine government. Philippine Embassy, Filipino embassy, not Filipino Embassy. Tricky, eh?
*Filipino also refers to the official language of the state (which is basically Tagalog).
*Filipiniana refers to Philippine-related books and non-book materials (cultural items, games, fashion, etc.) which could be produced by Filipinos or non-Filipinos, inside or outside the Philippines.
*Pinoy is a colloquial gender-neutral demonym; comparable to how New Zealanders use the word Kiwi.
The demonym Filipino has evolved from that of referring only to Spaniards in the Philippines into becoming the term for the native people who choose to embrace the identity of a national.
It started from when Jose Rizal wrote his poem “A la juventud filipina” and he emerged as an inspiration to the Philippine Revolution through Andres Bonifacio’s leadership. (But take note of ‘filipina’ because ‘juventud’ is a feminine word in Spanish.)
Today, no less than the 1987 Philippine Constitution, which was neither written by Hamilton nor a group of straight white men but by people of different faiths, genders, disabilities, and skin colors, in its first five words in both Filipino and English versions read: "Kami, ang nakapangyayaring sambayanang Pilipino", translated as "We, the sovereign Filipino people” validates the legitimacy of the word as gender-neutral, alive, aware and awake with our history of struggles.
Article 14 Section 7 of the current Constitution says Filipino is the national language. And while I agree that it is not really a real language but an alias for Tagalog, it is a conscientious codification of a social norm during the time of Manuel Quezon as he is aiming for the world to recognize the unified Filipinos as a sovereign people. People. Not men. Not heterosexual men. People.
It is a non-issue for the homeland Filipino that the word Filipino refers to the people and the language. But FilAms are concerned of political correctness due to an understandable cultural insecurity also felt by other non-whites in the US. And there is added confusion when FilAms pattern the word Filipino after the patriarchal Spanish language, without learning that the core of the grammars of Philippine languages are gender-neutral. The Tagalog pronoun "siya" has no gender. "Aba Ginoong Maria" is proof that the Tagalog word 'ginoo' originally has no gender. Our language is so high-context that we have a fundamental preposition: “sa”.
It is difficult to be a person of color in the United States especially in these times of the white supremacy’s galling resurgence. Well, it’s not like they have been gone, but this time, with Trump, especially, it’s like the movement took steroids and was given an advertising budget. But for FilAms to force Filipinx into the Philippines, among homeland Filipinos, is a rather uneducated move, insensitive of the legacies of our national heroes and magnificent leaders.
The FilAm culture and the Filipino homeland culture are super different, nuanced. It’s a different dynamic for a Latinx who speak Spanish or Portuguese or whatever their native language is - it reminds entitled white English-speaking America of their place in the continent. It should remind a racist white man whose roots hail from Denmark that his house in Los Angeles stands on what used to be the Mexican Empire.
Let’s use a specific cultural experience by a Black person for example: the black person not only has Smith or Johnson for their last name, but there is no single easy way for them to retrieve their family tree denoting which African country they were from, unless the Slave Trade has data as meticulous as the SALN forms. Let’s use a specific cultural experience by a Mexican-American with Native American heritage: the person is discriminated by a white US Border Patrol officer in the border of Texas. Texas used to be part of Mexico. Filipinos have a traceable lineage and a homeland.
Filipinos and FilAms may be enjoying the same food recipes, dancing the same cultural dance for purposes of presentations every once in a while, but the living conditions, the geography, the languages, social experiences, the human conditions are different, making the psychology, the politics, the social implications more disparate than Latinxs like Mexicans and Mexican Americans.
I don’t know if it is too much advertising from state instruments or from whatever but FilAms don’t realize how insensitive they have become in trying to shove a cultural tone down the throats of the citizens of the republic or of those who have closer affinity to it. And some Filipino homelanders who are very used to accommodating new global social trends without much sifting fall into the trap of misplaced passions.
To each his own, I guess. But FilAms should read Jose Rizal’s two novels, Carlos Romulo’s “I am a Filipino”, materials by Miriam Defensor Santiago (not just the humor books), speeches of Claro Recto, books by historians Gregorio Zaide, Teodoro Agoncillo, Renato Constantino, Nick Joaquin, Regalado Trota Jose, Fidel Villaroel, Zeus Salazar, Xiao Chua, and Ambeth Ocampo, and really immerse themselves in the struggle of the Filipino for an unidentifiable identity which the FilAms confuse for the FilAm culture. That’s a little weird because unlike Blacks and the Latinx movement, the Philippines is a real sovereign state which FilAms could hinge their history from.
I have to be honest. The homelanders don’t really care much about FilAm civil rights heroes Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong, or even Alice Peña Bulos, because it was a different fight. But the media can play a role sharing it, shaping consensus and inadvertently setting standards. (But it’s slightly different for Peña Bulos, as people are realizing she was already a somebody in the Philippines before becoming a who’s who in the US, which is somehow similar to the case of Lea Salonga who was not only from the illustrious Salonga clan, but was also already a child star.) How much do Filipino millennials know about Marcoses, Aquinos? Maybe too serious? Lol. Then, let’s try using my favorite examples as a couch potato of newer cultural materials accessible to FilAms - cultural materials on television and internet.
FilAms who only watched TFC wondered who Regine Velasquez was when ABSCBN welcomed her like a beauty queen. Those with the GMA Pinoy TV have a little idea. But they did not initially get why the most successful Filipino artist in the US, Lea Salonga, does not get that level of adulation at home that Velasquez enjoys. Was it just Regine’s voice? No. Well, kinda, maybe, because there is no question that she is a damn good singer with God knows how many octaves, but it is the culture she represents as a probinsyana who made it that far and chose to go back home and stay - and that’s already a cultural nuance Filipinos understand and resonate with, without having to verbalize because the Philippines is a high-context culture in general, versus the US which is low-context culture in general. I mean, how many Filipinos know the difference of West End and Broadway, and a Tony and an Olivier? What does a Famas or a Palanca mean to a FilAm, to a Filipino scholar, and to an ordinary Filipino? Parallel those ideas with "Bulacan", "Asia", "Birit", "Songbird".
You think Coach Apl.de.Ap is that big in the Philippines? He was there for the global branding of the franchise because he is an American figure but really, Francis Magalona (+) and Gloc9 hold more influence. And speaking of influence, do FilAms know Macoy Dubs, Lloyd Cadena (+) and the cultures they represent? Do FilAms know Aling Marie and how a sari-sari store operates within a community? Do FilAms see the symbolic functions of a makeshift basketball (half)courts where fights happen regularly? How much premium do FilAms put on queer icons Boy Abunda, Vice Ganda? Do FilAms realize that Kris Aquino's role in Crazy Rich Asians was not just to have a Filipino in the cast (given that Nico Santos is already there) but was also Kris Aquino's version of a PR stunt to showcase that Filipinos are of equal footing with Asian counterparts if only in the game of 'pabonggahan'? Will the FilAms get it if someone says ‘kamukha ni Arn-arn’? Do FilAms see the humor in a Jaclyn Jose impersonation? Do FilAms even give premiums to the gems Ricky Lee, Peque Gallaga, Joel Lamangan, Joyce Bernal, Cathy Garcia Molina, and Jose Javier Reyes wrote and directed? (And these are not even National Artists.) How about AlDub or the experience of cringing to edgy and sometimes downright disgusting remarks of Joey De Leon while also admiring his creative genius? Do FilAms understand the process of how Vic Sotto became ‘Bossing’ and how Michael V could transform into Armi Millare? Do FilAms get that Sexbomb doesn’t remind people of Tom Jones but of Rochelle? Do FilAms get that dark humor when Jay Sonza’s name is placed beside Mel Tiangco’s? What do FilAms associate with the names ‘Tulfo’, ‘Isko’, ‘Erap’, ‘Charo’, ‘Matet’, ‘Janice’, ‘Miriam’, ‘Aga’, ‘Imelda’ and ‘Papin’? Do FilAms get that majority of Filipinos cannot jive into Rex Navarette’s and Jo Koy’s humor but find the comic antics of JoWaPao, Eugene Domingo, Mr Fu, Ryan Rems, and Donna Cariaga very easy to click with? Do FilAms know Jimmy Alapag, Jayjay Helterbrand, Josh Urbiztondo? Oh wait, these guys are FilAms. Lol. Both cultures find bridge in NBA, but have these FilAms been to a UAAP, NCAA, or a PBA basketball game where the longstanding rival groups face each other? Do FilAms know the legacy of Ely Buendia and the Eraserheads? Do FilAms know about Brenan Espartinez wearing this green costume on Sineskwela? Do FilAms know how Kiko Matsing, Ate Sienna, Kuya Bodjie helped shape a generation of a neoliberal workforce?
That list goes on and on, when it comes to this type of Filipiniana materials on pop culture, and I am sure as Shirley Puruntong that while the homeland Filipino culture is not as widespread, it has depth in its humble and high-context character.
Now, look at the practical traffic experiences of the homelanders. People riding the jeepneys, the tricycles, the MRT/LRT, the buses, and the kolorum - the daily Via Crucis of Mega Manila only Filipinos understand the gravity of, even without yet considering the germs passed as the payments pass through five million other passengers before reaching the front. Add the probinsyas, people from periphery islands who cross the sea to get good internet connections or do a checkup in the closest first-class town or component city. Do FilAms realize that the largest indoor arena in the world is built and owned by Iglesia ni Cristo, a homegrown Christian church with a headquarters that could equal the Disney castle?
Do FilAms know the experience as a tourist's experience or as an experience a homelander want to get away from or at least improved?
Do FilAms understand how much an SM, a Puregold, or a Jollibee, Greenwich, Chowking branch superbly change a town and its psychology and how it affects the Pamilihang Bayan? Do FilAms realize that while they find amusement over the use of tabo, the homelanders are not amused with something so routinary? Do FilAms realize how Filipinos shriek at the thought that regular US households do not wash their butts with soap and water after defecating?
Do FilAms understand the whole concept of "ayuda" or SAP Form in the context of pandemic and politics? The US has food banks, EDDs, and stubs - but the ayuda is nowhere near the first world entitlements Filipinos in the homeland could consider luxury. But, that in itself is part of the cultural nuance.
Do FilAms know that Oxford recognizes Philippine English as a diction of the English language? While we’ve slowly grown out of the fondness for pridyider and kolgeyt, do FilAms know how xerox is still used in the local parlance? Do FilAms know how excruciating it is to read Panitikan school books Ibong Adarna, Florante at Laura under the curriculum, and how light it is to read Bob Ong? Do FilAms realize that Jessica Zafra, with all her genius, is not the ordinary homelander’s cup-of-tea?
Do FilAms know that Filipinos do not sound as bad in English as stereotypes made them believe? Do FilAms really think that Philippines will be a call center capital if our accents sound like the idiolects of Rodrigo Duterte’s or Ninoy Aquino’s Philippine English accent? Do FilAms realize how Ninoy and Cory speak English with different accents? Lea Salonga's accent is a thespian's accent so she could do a long range like that of Meryl Streep if she wants to so she wouldn't be a good example. Pacquiao's accent shows the idiolect unique to his region in southern Philippines. But for purposes of showing an ethnolinguistic detail, I am using President Cory Aquino’s accent when she delivered her historic speech in the US Congress as a more current model of the Philippine English accent.
Do FilAms bother themselves with the monsoons, the humidity, and the viscosity of sweat the same way they get bothered with snowstorms, and heat waves measured in Fahrenheit?
Do FilAms know that not only heterosexual men are accepted in the Katipunan? Do FilAms even know what the Katipunan is? Do FilAms realize that the Philippines had two female presidents and a transwoman lawmaker? Do FilAms take “mamatay nang dahil sa’yo” the same way Filipinos do? Do FilAms know the ground and the grassroots? Do FilAms know the Filipino culture of the homeland?
These are cultural nuances FilAms will never understand without exposure of Philippine society reflected from barrio to lalawigan, from Tondo to Forbes Park. It goes the same way with Filipinos not understanding the cultural weight of Robert Lopez and the EGOT, or Seafood City, or Lucky Chances Casino, or what Jollibee symbolizes in New York, unless they are exposed.
The thing though is that while it is harder for FilAms to immerse to the homeland culture, it is easier for homeland culture to immerse into the FilAm’s because America’s excess extends to the propagation of its own subcultures, of which the FilAm’s is one.
We’re the same yet we’re different. But it should not be an issue if we are serious with embracing diversity. There should not be an issue with difference when we could find a common ground in a sense of history and shared destiny. But it is the burden of the Filipinos with and in power to understand the situation of those who have not.
Nuances. Nuances. Nuances.
And while I believe that changing a vowel into X to promote gender-neutrality has a noble intention, there is no need to fix things that are not broken. Do not be like politicians whose acts of service is to destroy streets and roads and then call for its renovation instead of fixing broken bridges or creating roads where there are none.
The word ‘Filipino’ is not broken. Since Rizal’s use of the term to refer to his Malayan folks, the formal process of repair started. And it is not merely codified, but validated by our prevailing Constitution, which I don’t think a FilAm would care to read, and I cannot blame them. What's in it for a regular FilAm? They wouldn’t read the US Constitution and the Federalist Papers; what more the 1987 Saligang Batas?
The bottomline of my thoughts on this particular X issue is that FilAms cannot impose a standard for Filipinos without going through a deeper, well-thought-out, more arduous process, most especially when the card of gender neutrality and political correctness are raised with no prior and deeper understanding of what it is to be a commoner in the homeland, of what it is to be an ordinary citizen in a barangay, from Bayan ng Itbayat, Lalawigan ng Batanes to Bayan ng Sitangkai, Lalawigan ng Sulu. It is very dangerous because FilAms yield more influence and power through their better access to resources, and yet these do not equate to cultural awareness.
Before Rizal’s political philosophy of Filipino, the ‘Filipino’ refers to a full-blooded Spaniard born in the Philippines, and since Spain follows jus sanguinis principle of citizenship, back then, ‘Filipino’ is as Spaniard as a ‘Madrileño’ (people in Madrid). The case in point is Marcelo Azcárraga Palmero - the Filipino Prime Minister of Spain.
But the word ‘Filipino’ was claimed by Rizal and the ilustrados to refer to whom the Spaniards call ‘indio’. The term was then applied retroactively to those who helped in the struggle. It was only later that Lapu-Lapu, Francisco Dagohoy, Gabriela and Diego Silang, Sultan Kudarat, Lorenzo Ruiz, and GOMBURZA were called Filipinos.
The word 'Filipino' was long fixed by the tears and sweat of martyrs through years of bloody history in the hands of traitors within and oppressors not just of the white race. The word Filipino is now used by men, women, and those who do not choose to be referred to as such who still bears a passport or any state document from the Republic of the Philippines. Whether a homelader is a Kapuso, Kapamilya, Kapatid, DDS, Dilawan, Noranian, Vilmanian, Sharonian, Team Magnolia, Barangay Ginebra, Catholic, Muslim, Aglipayan, Iglesia, Victory, Mormon, IP, OP, SJ, RVM, SVD, OSB, OSA, LGBTQQIP2SAA, etc., the word 'Filipino' is a constant variable in the formula of national consciousness.
Merriam-Webster defines Filipina as a Filipino girl or woman. Still a Filipino. Remember, dictionaries do not dictate rules. Dictionaries provide us with the meaning. To me, the word Filipina solidified as a subtle emphasis to the Philippines as a matriarchal country faking a macho look. But that’s not saying the word Filipino in the language is macho with six-pack.
The word Filipino is not resting its official status on the letter O but in its quiddity as a word and as an idea of a sovereign nation. The words Pilipino, Filipino, and Pinoy are not broken. What is broken is the notion that a Filipino subculture dictates the standard for political correctness without reaching the depth of our own history.
If the Filipinx-Pinxy-Pilipinx movement truly suits the Filipino-American struggle, my heart goes out for it. But my republic, the Philippines, home of the Filipino people, cradle of noble heroes, has no need for it (not just yet, maybe) - not because we don't want change, but because it will turn an already resolved theme utterly problematic. The Filipinos have no need for it, not because we cannot afford to consider political correctness when people are hungry, abused, and robbed off taxes. We could afford to legalize a formal way of Filipino greeting for purposes of national identity. But as far as the Filipinx, it should not be the homeland’s priority.
We may be poor, but we have culture.
From Julius Payàwal Fernandez's post
