I could probably say that I have spent all my life living in the eastern part of Manila, the province of Rizal to be specific. My sibs and I grew up in the hilly countryside of Montalban then spent our adolescent years in one of the bustling towns of Pasig. I’ve always wondered what lurks on the other side of the mountains people call the Sierra Madre, which often times appear like a patch of green and violet from the distance. Every time there was a storm coming, Sierra Madre acted like a shield protecting an overpopulated Manila, only to find out later on that Aurora and Quezon provinces would bear the grunt of every passing storm.
None of us planned to move out of Rizal, until late last year when Typhoon Ondoy flooded almost all of Rizal and sent everyone to their rooftops. There was widespread devastation everywhere and no way we can relieve the nightmare. That was what prompted us to go and live in the south. For our own peace of mind.
This is going to be our first family-owned house in a decent neighborhood in Cavite. The best thing about it is we can have our own mini-garden where we can set up outdoor electric grill for small barbecue parties, plant camote tops, and put up a resting place where I can do computer work.
And what I badly need right now is a bike that I can use to reach the village gate. I hope someone would give me a car to address my commuting worries from home to office.
I saw a clip of Melanie Marquez’s Q&A during the 1979 Miss International pageant on one of our resto’s Samsung HDTV and it cracked me up. But Janina San Miguel, 2008 Binibining Pilipinas World titleholder, caused an uproar when she delivered her answer in a rather embarrassing way.
Venus Raj’s “major major” was actually “minor minor” compared to the degree of suffering other contestants have to endure. Now, this brings one “major major” issue back to the table: why not get an interpreter and let our Pinay beauties speak in Tagalog?
The insistence of our local pageant organizers to conduct Q&A’s in English may be good, but it limits a candidate’s ability to express herself well. Why the unwanted pressure? Being a country with the third largest number of English-speaking citizens in the world does not mean that we do speak the language well. Some of us never really had an access to quality education and grew up learning English from the television sets. Others grew up in an English-speaking community but can be as dumb as anyone else. The ability to speak in English should never be equated to intelligence.
Beauty contestants are judged based on their beauty, character and brains, but not the language. South American titleholders of Miss Universe have always been aided by an interpreter, a practice no one took against them. They were able to share their thoughts well without looking stupid. Why not do the same to our own local candidates who are not comfortable expressing themselves in an alien tongue? After all, no one really expects our beauty contestants to be grammatically correct.
After Jejemon, which became the “Word of the Year”, comes Bekimon, or gay speak.
Bekimon has been around for quite some time. Some of my friends, those who made a living selling pharmaceutical products, insurances and bcbsnc plans, speak it with ease, and I have eventually acquired a few words as well, like “mudra”. But no one has officially “christened” it until now. Classic examples might hit you home: kalerki, junakis, chorva, ma at pa, anda, jowa, chenes, itich, etc. Try checking out Angelica Panganiban and John Lapuz in the movie “Here Comes The Bride” and you’ll get a pretty good bekimon material there.
How it became another language I don’t know, but gays and most women everywhere have been using them. Bekimon came from the words “becky” or “beki”, gay speak for “bakla”. It is used like a secret code among gays living in a homophobic society.
Prof. Jesus Federico Fernandez, former chair of the Department of Linguistics of the University of the Philippines, gave a brief lecture on how “bekimon” is formed in 9 ways: “paglalapi” (adding of suffixes), “pagpapalit ng tunog” (changing of sounds), use of acronyms, “pag-uulit ng salita” (repeating words), “pagkakaltas” (shortening a word or phrase), “katunog” (sameness of sound), “paghihiram” (borrowing from other languages), and “pagbabago ng kahulugan ng salitang hiniram” (changing meanings).
At the time of this writing, an online bekimon translator is already in place. We’re evolving.
