An advocacy to live by

Nora Soriño .

ILIGAN City — “Here we were in a courtroom, the judge, a Bisaya, the lawyers on the two sides, both Bisaya, the witness on the stand Bisaya. And we were all talking in English!”

These declarations came from Atty. Leo Zaragoza.

He meant that they all ought to be  there in the courtroom talking in our language that is “Bisaya.”

I only half-agreed with him on that aspect. Because, what about the technical terms? For instance, there’s that joke of a story in a courtroom in which the judge said to the person being sued: “You are being accused of the crime of committing robbery in band.”

The interpreter in Bisaya had a hard time interpreting the last three words so he said, “nanulis kauban ang banda.”

Lost in translation.

Anyway, Atty. Z. is passionate about his advocacy, that is using as much as possible our language, and why we are always pa-ingles-ingles.

I agree with that all the way. I’m even turned off with the expression, “Sus, Bisaya kaayo,” which implies “being of low quality” — meaning, putting us, Bisaya, or our own language,  synonymous with “low quality,” and equating English with “high quality” even if these are mostly spoken in jest.

In that 69th “Adlaw sa Iligan,” my friend Gene and I went to one of this city’s tourist destinations, the Paseo de Santiago. This is owned by Atty. Z. It was a good thing that he was around attending to the upkeep.

The paseo, to note, per my estimate, is a more than two-hectare wonder. Once, the site was occupied by informal settlers with their rundown shanties with the stench of garbage as the Santiago barangay, too, was once the garbage dumping site of the city. Now, it is the site where you say, “oh” or “ah, what a wonderful world!” Transforming a dump into a wonderful tourist destination is nothing short of a miracle. 

So, in the Paseo where some bands play nightly, you can hear Bisaya songs. Atty. Z makes it a point that some songs are that. He says this year, they are required two songs on that. In another year, it will be five. They must comply or else.

So, we hear our native songs. And then we feel nostalgic.

Atty. Z says at first there was no “entrance fee,” and people did not take notice of the wonders of it. With the entrance of P15-P20, people began to get curious, he said.

On that 69th “Adlaw sa Iligan” morning, June 16, 2019, Atty. Z led us to somewhere in his Paseo. It was good that the Adlaw was a subdued affair with only perfunctory celebs, the parade even did not materialize. Maybe it was because there was still the election hangover.

In some of his speeches, Atty. Z. really talked about his Bisaya advocacy. And once, I told him that sometimes, I am in collision course  with other Bisaya who are purists. Like saying that the translation of ice would be according to them, to be translated as “batunaw.” (Roughly the equivalent of stone that can be melted!)

He though said it does not matter whether you are purist or not as long as it is Bisaya.

A portion of his Paseo had a European motif — the design, the gates, the replica of European-looking buildings. He led us to some winding staircase where you see what I kind of thought it was a “view to a kill” as in a half-remembered James Bond movie.

It was a back view of a school.

“The ugly side of MSU-IIT,” my friend exclaimed in jest.

Back to that European affair downstairs after we stepped down the narrow and winding staircase. It was still a work in progress. But you can see European all along. It was like stepping really into Western Europe.

“There’s the bar,” Z said pointing to the half-finished bar where men were working on. “I will import people really from Europe. Maybe $600 will be enough for each. And this time, they will be at the command of us, Pinoys, taking our orders, serving us!”

He really was walking his talk. And for a while, my friend and I were speechless.

After our visit to that tourist destination called Paseo de Santiago, my friend was ambivalent on that European concept. He sort of thought that it was “racist,” sort of a revenge for what we Pinoys were or still “are” in history? I couldn’t agree or disagree with my friend.

Well, what do you think, friends out there?