PINOY KASI
'Corruptionary'

By Michael Tan
Columnist
Philippine Daily Inquirer
December 10, 2008
Posted: February 14, 2009

The "Corruptionary" is a publication from the University of the Philippines and the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), featuring more than 400 terms related to corruption in the Philippines, from A (example: “abogado,” or lawyer) to Z (one entry: “zero zero”). You'll get the "translations" if you read on. (Oops, was that a bribe?)

I mentioned the Corruptionary in passing some months back when I wrote about Popular Bookstore's many delights, but I thought I would do a longer article on this amazing book, partly because I was asked recently to talk about it. The CenPEG has just convened a National Study Conference on Corruptionary this week, and I'd been asked to be a reactor in one of the sessions, to a paper by professor Alice Guillermo on "The Corruption Network." My response centered mainly on how the Corruptionary opens new avenues for looking at, and fighting, graft and corruption. I'm going to share with Inquirer readers a modified version of my presentation.

We usually think of language as a way of communicating but social scientists have a deeper interest in languages, which are seen as clues to understanding societies.

If you have taken a General Anthropology course, you have probably been exposed to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, named after Americans Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. Sapir was an expert on American Indian languages. Whorf had a more diverse background, having been trained as a chemical engineer and later becoming an executive of a fire insurance company. However, he also enrolled in a course under Sapir, an expert on languages, and expanded some of his important ideas.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has two propositions. The first deals with linguistic relativism, which says that each language has many words that will be difficult to translate to another language because it is quite specific to a particular society's experiences and views of the world.
Usually, the more words a society has for a particular object, or phenomenon (including emotions), is an indicator of saliency or importance. The example I use all the time is the many words Asian languages have for rice. In Filipino, for example, we have, to name a few, "palay," "bigas," "kanin," "tutong." Then there's the word "kain" (eat), which is obviously related to kanin. The difference in the lexicon tells us that rice is most important for Filipino. Not surprisingly, English only has one word "rice," which then has to be described as cooked rice, rice to be planted, etc.

'Lason'

The second part of the hypothesis is sometimes described as linguistic determinism, and proposes that language shapes the way we think. Whorf had an interesting example coming from his work as a fire insurance company executive. If you see some metal containers labeled "gasoline drums," you would probably be cautious as you move near it, stubbing out a cigarette, for example. Now if you see the containers labeled "empty gasoline drums," you would be more cavalier, even careless as you move about the drums.

In my classes, I use another example from my work with nongovernmental organizations. Pesticides were once called "lason" [poison], an accurate term for these often highly toxic substances. Yet over the years, pesticide companies were able to get farmers to refer to these chemicals as "gamot," a "cure" against pests. I'm not surprised people let their guard down with pesticides through the years, keeping the chemicals inside the house, sometimes even in the kitchen. In the 1970s, I even found farmers using the pesticides literally as medicine for wounds.

Let's look now at how the Sapir Whorf hypothesis can apply to the Corruptionary.

First, the many words that have emerged around Corruptionary tell us that corruption has become an integral part of our society. The words are, well, corruptions of original meanings, but mostly, they are meant to be euphemisms, ways of talking about something that can't be talked about openly, and politely. In many cases, they are meant to camouflage bribe-taking-and bribe-giving.

A second, more worrisome aspect that comes from the Corruptionary is that corruption seems to permeate all aspects of our culture, invading all areas almost with irreverence. Who would have thought that "Ninoy," the nickname of the venerated Benigno Aquino Jr., would now mean a P500 bribe, because he appears on that bill. Or that "three little pigs" would be a way of asking for a P1,000 bribe, referring to the three national heroes on that bill.

Our regard for lawyers may have dropped, but not to the depths described by the Corruptionary: If you're asked by a law enforcer who your lawyer is, naming Manuel Roxas means you intend to pay him P100, Diosdado Macapagal would mean P200, Ninoy Aquino P500.
Now, if you do respect our national heroes, you can get mathematical and reply, "Zero zero," which means you intend to pay P100. (Don't be surprised if inflation eventually introduces "zero zero zero.")

Exorcism

Whorf's "linguistic determinism" offers us some possibilities when it comes to fighting corruption: If language is a shaper of ideas, then it becomes a powerful force to fighting corruption.

The Corruptionary itself shows how this can be done. The initial work came from the summer practicum work of a group of students in a Political Science class at the University of the Philippines, Manila, advised by Dr. Josephine Tayag, and was then expanded and edited by Bonifacio Ilagan, Bobby Tuazon, and others, until it became the book we have today.

One of my fellow reactors at the CenPEG conference, Professor Maria Luz Rebecca Añonuevo of Miriam College, had an interesting metaphor for classroom exercises around corruption. By having students reflect on, and describing corruption, they are now in the position to "exorcise" it.

We need more of this anti-corruption exorcism in classes, in offices, in churches and mosques, in homes, asking people what terms they already know and reflecting on those terms. For example, I had at least two terms that were not in the Corruptionary but which were once quite popular in government offices. One was "golden hand," used to describe someone good at forging requests for reimbursements. The other term was "AIDS," which means "as if doing something," used to refer to the many idle employees, both in the private and government sector, who sit around all day gossiping, creating intrigues-and complaining about government corruption.

We have to reverse the trend of creating euphemisms, and get back to calling a spade a spade. Corruption, even if "only" not doing anything as in AIDS, is a vice, a cancer, a lethal disease, a poison. The Corruptionary, now available in Filipino and English, is only one of many tools that have come out in recent years that can be used to broaden campaigns against graft and corruption, from Shiela Coronel and Lorna Kalaw-Tirol's edited volume, "Investigating Corruption: A Do-it-Yourself Guide" (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 2002) to a film, "Ehem." Contact CENPEG for more resources at 929-9526. Their office is at the College of Social Work and Community Development at the University of the Philippines, Diliman.