THERE are times that we create our own problems due to attitudinal inconsistency if not structural ambiguity of language in communicating our thoughts with others.
Take the case of our boxing icon Manny Pacquiao. We know that his forte is exactly that--boxing. For this reason he regularly goes on isolation to devote himself to serious exercise and practice approaching the level of the oft-cited punitive life of Siberian hard labor. Now, one such time, there comes from among us almost from nowhere an ambush shot with “What do you think of same- sex marriage?”
Naturally, the boxer answers back in the way he knows. He even gives a truthful answer. He answered the question squarely. Instead of appreciating the respondent, we felt punched to the face. We start pommeling back at him with greater intensity, even rallying others to his side. Poor Manny was getting bedeviled for honestly expressing just what he really thought without imposing it to others, much less to the queror or any hearer. Other respondents would have impatiently retorted “Ask that to the marines!”
Let’s go to the case of Apo Duterte. People voted him into office because they enjoyed how he was different in the traditional way of other aspirants in action and words to the electorates. He knew they were for something unpredictably different namely that variety delights.Unfortunately again, we were not prepared to take the unpredictable Duterteic way for which we were to vote him into office.
Other politicians would have poured paragraphs of circumlocutions into the microphone even before questions were completed but not this president- elect. He answered by not answering, just responded with a ditty, wolf-whistle plus a sort of impish twinkle of the eye. To a traditional taker, this unconventional way of answering particularly by a would-be president was unbearable. For other cultures, however, like Ilocanoes, who are used to enjoy “sutsutil”, it is another pleasurable variety in sparring communication. This is true with the Gobang and Mabaka. Tinguian of the Abra- Kalinga area.
It was told if Ama Tawaknig that in a dangu chant debate in Manapnap, Malibcong, how he was once about to be cornered in reasoning by his opponent, when he suddenly remembered that poetic opponent was a womanizer but sincerely hated to be called so. So, Tawaknig resorted to the technical ad hominem attack. Out- of topically interspersed his chant with “Awad kuaka ukon/ Nginadankon gakumon/ Ta awad asana tokmon.”I have a puppy. I named him Gacumon because he bites just at anything. Upon hearing this, the sensitive adversary at once took cue of the abominable insinuation. He got irked, stood up and challenged Tawaknig to a physical fistfight. Tawaknig suddenly pointed at the angered man and chuckled loudly saying “Naabakka” (You lose). The audience clapped in agreement because the party that stops answering in verses in deemed conquered. Only a big chinese jay of aged “Basi” wine was consumed out of what were readed for the community occasion.
Much earlier in time, an assigned evaluator from the National Commision for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) attended a bodong “galigad” (Social gathering to effect a change of Bodong holders or guarantors. She dismayingly reported that the people in the gathering indulged in drinking sugarcane wine. For her the galigad practice was scandalous and therefore, better not worthy of NCCA support and perpetuation. That showed that she used her cultural background to judge how the occasion was held. Contrary to her mission to just go, observe and report to the central office she would see and hear. She was not into position to give appraisal, much less to go didactive. She did not know that the drinking of sugarcane wine “Basi” is a ritual act in any process of the Bodong celebration. Drinking basi therein signifies the grip that the bodong peacemaking is expected to bestow upon the peoples of the territory covered by the bodong governance thus created. To Catholics for example you cannot speak of a holy mass without the bread and the wine. Really eating and drinking.
Perhaps it is high time that we learn to appreciate other people’s views and not insist on our own way of thinking and expressing. In short, it would be better for advocates of freedom of expression to give that freedom also to others particularly to those we feel adverse to our own or better listen to the Kalinga elders beckoning “Umali kayo ketdi ta mankape taku” (Rather come, let’s drink coffee!)