ONE distinct and ugly trait of the Filipinos is their loud voices in public. A female group in spirited dialogue creates a public market scene.
Even the educated among our compatriots are guilty of raising voices when one or three among them congregate. They talk about a hot issue of the day and create a babel of voices. The worst complaint about our women is not the volume of their discourse but the act of speaking simultaneously.
This is especially true with our women overseas contract workers. When a gaggle of Filipina domestics meet in restaurants, or convene in a public park during their day-off, you would recognize them by their voices. They do not wait for their turn t but outtalk each other in simultaneous fashion.
They are raucous in their exuberance, disturbingly noisy in their conversations, and unpleasantly distracting in arguments. This reflects tribal instincts in which a loud voice is a social asset.
Generally these observations are evident among “balikbayans” in dining establishments where relatives accidentally meet; former classmates, seeing old-time acquaintances and distant kin who have not seen each other for a period.
It is within this framework that some Singapore nationals are demanding that the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) be assigned separate buses to protect the local nationals from their “noise pollution.”
Filipino housemaids travelling on busy Orchard Road on Sundays, for example, were accused of loud talking while in buses and who “joked and burst out laughing loudly as in a thunderstorm.”
Filipinos cannot be faulted exclusively for their propensity for loud conversations – most nationalities are not spared of this nuisance. Filipino native speakers have to shout or raise their voices as if to cover up- or remedy for defective ethnic accent and pronunciation.
For instance when an Ilonggo girl is told that her cousin back home has run away with a dancehall bouncer, she exclaims “Sus Ginoo!” Her voice trails from the Star Ferry terminal across the landing on Hongkong side.
An Ilocano domestic was informed that her husband in Bangui, Ilocos Norte has shacked up with a young local wench. She reacted by shouting in disbelief “Ukininam!” and goes into a vociferous litany of curses on the infidel.
A Pampanguena DH received a text message from a relative that her jobless husband has girlfriends in karaoke joints. She shouts “Puta nayda nang pataban, mika-AIDS ya sa!”
Singaporeans who ride along with loquacious Filipina in commuter buses are bothered less by the strange sounding polyglot than the distinct noise of our OFWs. Their chatter and gossips range from movie stars who get pregnant, local officials in graft charges, and husbands of colleagues who squander their wives’ earnings.
We hazard a guess that the Filipinos’ noisy and loud-mouthed trait is due to the ancient setting of native houses. The rural village comprised dwellings that stood far apart from each other. When a household called a missing child to report home, for instance the mother usually shouted on top of her voice. “Baldo, muli nakaaa!” It was the same sound-signal that even a straying pet pig responds to (“Ekan!”) while the tarrying offspring fearfully runs home from a playmate’s kubo a distance away.
The wide open space of the countryside developed shouting dialogues as the effective means of communications between rural individuals in adjacent houses. Thus even our new generation has that unconscious ingrained habit of talking loud to communicate, not the least bothered by the nuisance of grating noise created on some sensitive ears. Sus, Ginoo!
The Filipinos’ blatant disregard of good manners and right conduct often result in quarrels between neighbors.