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.
|
|
