THE Cebuano language recently acquired a new word.
However, because of the sensitive and potentially dangerous nature of this word, I’m afraid to mention it.
A friend—I won’t be specific since I don’t want authorities to trace the person and take the person into custody—introduced it to me.
I’m not a linguist so I’m not even sure whether the word can be described as a noun or an adjective, but it definitely can be used as a verb.
In my last column, I wrote about the precarious balance that the Cebu City Government has struck between keeping the public safe from the highly infectious coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) and making sure those who have been affected by the enhanced community quarantine can continue to eke an existence.
I mentioned the “suffering of the people” when I realized I could be accused of spreading fake news since, admittedly, I had no way of proving that the general public was in agony.
So I changed it to “my suffering.”
I figured the dark forces couldn’t well say I was spreading lies. I, of all the people out there, would know how I’d been coping since the pandemic reached our shores and caused havoc on our mental and physical well-being.
It didn’t help that the City Government imposed a liquor ban days before it placed the whole city under an ECQ, which caught many—and I mean many—by surprise.
Seriously. What was it thinking? Wasn’t taking away a person’s freedom of movement already enough? Jeez!
So where was I? Oh yes, the word.
Apparently, it started making the rounds after the arrest of Maria Victoria Beltran on Sunday, April 19, 2020.
Remember her? She was brought to the police station in the dead of night and was later charged for posting on her Facebook wall that residents of a sitio in one of the city’s barangays had all been infected with the coronavirus... or something like that.
She also wrote that Cebu City was the epicenter of the disease in the entire solar system.
I won’t pretend to know what was on her mind when she wrote that post. After all, Bambi – by the way, that’s what her friends and enemies call her—is an enigma. But hey, she could have said Cebu City was the epicenter of the whole universe. But she didn’t. That showed restraint on her part.
So what’s this new word that cannot be written?
Let’s put it this way, if you find yourself arrested for saying things that the current City Government believes will result in panic or deems criminal, then you’ve been... you know.