University of Santo tomas Publishing House

The
The House
House of
of True
True Desire
Desire
The House of True Desire
Essays on Life and Literature

CIRILO F. BAUTISTA

UST Publishing House

Manila, Philippines
2010
 Foreword
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I n answer to the request of readers, I put together in this

book articles from my weekly column, “Breaking Signs,”
in the Philippine Panorama, Sunday magazine of the Manila
Bulletin. From around 476 pieces culled from 17 years of
writing, I have chosen some 115 which I hope will be
representative of my subject range and style.
When I started writing “Breaking Signs” in 1992, I did
not think that it would be a major concern of my writing
interest. It would not last. It was just something you did
“on the side,” I thought, to fill up the spaces in between
finishing that poem or that story. In the first few years I
regarded it as such—an obligation to be met as literary editor
of the Panorama. Then I came to like writing the column
and I do even now. It provides me with a counter-energy
for crawling out of the muddle of an epic in progress or
escaping the headache of a novel that refuses to move. It
makes me look at life from the perspective of a citizen and
a countryman, while at the same time maintaining its
linkage to literary truths. Indeed, the editorial parameters
given me by the publisher were “Life and Literature,” no
more than two typewritten pages, and I must observe the
responsibilities of a conservative magazine.
For the sake of editorial convenience, the articles in
this book are grouped in four categories­­­— “Commentaries:
Literature and Life”; “Conversations”; “Literary Reviews”;

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“Personal Narratives”; and “Commentaries: Literature and Writing.”

They are not, of course, rigid classifications, given the nature
of my literary strategies. There are some articles that can
be placed under more than one of the categories.

In writing my column, I have no particular audience

in mind. I do not want my creativeness to be limited by an
unseen force with its own demands on my literary act. And
so to those who ask, “For whom do you write?” I answer,
“If you read my column, then I write for you.” That is the
closest I can get to defining my readers—not by their quality
but buy their response. And there are many of them out
there—provincial and city teachers, college students, ports,
fictionists, housewives, retired government servants, overseas
Filipino workers. They have been writing me and texting me
their reactions to what they read. I am sometimes surprised
by the depth of their insights or the relevance of their inter-
pretations. They complain when the column is bumped off
to give way to an advertisement, but always they have
encouraging words for my writing skill and the wish for
the column’s continued existence.

With these readers I explore literature, the house of

true desire, to understand how it permeates everyday life
and social institutions. Literature and life always intersect at
certain point, since they feed each other. A sociology binds
them together in a relationship that is both human and
artistic. The house provides the rooms for life’s yearning for
fulfillment, and offers correctives to its frailties and frustra-
tions; life enlivens the house with materials for passion and
perfection. We seek in literature what we cannot find in life,
and in life what literature promises.

CIRILO F. BAUTISTA
 The History of Words
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I t is interesting to note that some Tagalog words have

their origin in the English language. This is, of course,
a result of the American colonization. The public educational
system that the colonial government set up for the Filipinos
stipulated the use of English as a medium of instruction, and
soon enough their modes of thinking and speaking went
through significant alterations. Linguistic influences followed
with the influx of American materials and ideas. Thus, though
the Americans ruled the islands for less than fifty years, their
language made a great impact on the natives’ consciousness.
It is to be expected then that somehow, American words
would find accommodation in the Tagalog language. This was
especially true with the lower classes who, for one reason
or another, were unable to attend school. They could not be
bilingual—experts in both Tagalog and English—so they tried
to incorporate American words into their native language
system. This was a form of reversed colonization, as it were,
which enriched Tagalog to a certain extent and continues to
the present time. Unfortunately, our etymologists and lexico-
graphers have not written sufficiently on the subject. Even
Fr. Leo James English’s Tagalog-English Dictionary and English-
Tagalog Dictionary, two important works in the field, do not
have etymological entries.
We do not have any book that can compare with, for
instance, Ernest Weekley’s The Romance of Words. It contains
the history of more than 2000 common words and phrases in

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Commentaries: Literature and Life 9

the English language. Weekley considers all the important

divisions of etymology such as phonetics, semantics, doublets,
homonyms, and family names. He traces the beginnings of
each word and explains the various changes that it went
through in the course of time. The information he gives is
interesting at the very least and a corrective to misconcep-
tions at most. For instance, he writes that “a salary is an
allowance for ‘salt’ (sal), a supercilious man is fond of raising
his ‘eyebrows’ (supercilia), and a trivial matter is so common-
place that it can be picked up at the meeting of ‘three ways’
(trivium). Dexterity implies skill with the ‘right’ hand (dexter),
while sinister preserves the superstition of the ill-omened
left.” Weekley says also that the game of tennis originated in
France, where it was played as early as the fifteenth century
by French knights who said tenez (hold) when they struck
the ball.
The Tagalog borrowings we are talking about are
mainly phonetic, not semantic. The original meanings are
retained while the spelling is Tagalized. In effect, they are
American words in Tagalog sounds. For instance, suot is from
“suit” (coat and tie) which the Americans introduced to the
islands. High school and college students in those times wore
suits to class. They were commonly made of sharkskin cloth
which was white and therefore cool because it reflected,
rather than absorbed the intense tropical sun. Other cloths
were used. So one might be asked, “Ano’ng suot mo (what’s
your suit)?” In time, the word came to mean simply “what
one is wearing.”
Hambog is from “humbug” (a pretender, an impostor, a
fraud), as in “Maraming hambog sa gobyerno.” It is synony-
mous with mayabang (which has the shade of a person given
to self-praise or self-admiration). Palaboy is from “playboy”
(a wealthy man who spends his time in pursuit of hedonistic
10 The House of True Desire

pleasure and leisure). A shade of meaning—that of being a

useless wanderer with a carefree attitude in life—developed,
as in “palaboy ng lansangan”—a vagabond, a jobless person.
This is synonymous with istambay which is from “stand by”
(idle, just hanging around). Pikon is from “pick on” (to affect
someone with sharp irritation by wounding his or her pride),
as in “Napikon siya dahil ininsulto ang kaniyang tula.” Garalgal
is from “gurgle” (to make the sound as of water flowing in
an uneven and irregular manner), as in “Magaralgal ang
tunog ng radyo.” Sipsip is from “sip” (to drink a little at a
time), as in “Sinipsip niya ang kape.” Gilitin or gilitan is from
“guillotine” (the sharp metal for beheading condemned
persons). In usage, it does not necessarily mean “to behead”
but “to cut” or “to incise,” as in “Gilitan mo ng leeg ang
manok.” For this reason, some say that the word may have
come from “Gillette,” the brand name of a shaving blade.
There are many other words of similar kind that need
to be studied and written about in a definitive volume on the
etymology of modern Tagalog words. It will be a useful source
of information and delight about aspects of our cultural
heritage, since the history of words is a mainspring of our
intellectual and emotional character. z