In the Language/s We Curse and Dream

The rains kept me this Sunday at home. It was a chance to watch again local television. Or, in my case, there was this change to stumble upon local TV. The program was defiantly pop and regional with a title that is ready to wage war of cultural identities. How can you not not ignore a program that goes by the title, “MagTV na, Oragon.” For those who have not been hiding under the earth, the word “Oragon” has already won the war against the colonialist discourse that had successfully pushed the term to the margin for hundreds of decades. In other words, “oragon” for bad or good has been mainstreamed. The proof is that a major network has just allowed its use.

This act of bringing into the salon of good taste and civility a word that used to belong to the universe of the obscene does not mean the word easily loses its racy and wicked roots. One does not simply utter the word “oragon”; one spews it. In the absence of some labial capacity to underscore the word, a tilt of the head or a rush in the intake of air before “oragon” is needed. In other words, “oragon” is not an ordinary word. It is a trenchant word and when used to herald an identity, it has a verve and wallop that should make any Bikolano sit up, look and listen.

Apparently, the title “Mag TV na” is not a monopoly of ABS-CBN Bikol; in other regions the first three words compose a template designating this morning show. There is “Mag TV na, Atin ito” for Southern Tagalog and other neighboring areas; there is “Mag TV na, Ato ni” for Northern Mindanao area only.” One region, in fact, settles simply for “Mag TV na.” In all the other “Mag TV na” enterprises, there is a laid-back, friendly, almost neutral and elegantly casual tone to the title. Which is appropriate for a morning show.

But in our region, the network has opted to add the word “Oragon.” There are words and there are words. But there are words that open sesame, that creates the world and brings forth existence. And “oragon” is one of those words.

You better be good if you are claiming the space of Oragon. And so it was that I started to sit up and look and listen to this morning program. And here is what I got: a team of hosts who spoke the Bikol language as if they were uttering the Bikol words for the first time. There was the timidity that not only softened the vowel sounds of the Bikolnon words but also made their voices squeaky. The timidity that was put-on was carried into the pronunciation of the words. I do not know them and therefore I assumed they were Manileños learning the language. The cruel scenario is if they are all Bikolanos. Could I say now with profound sadness that they were Bikolanos trying to sound like Manileños speaking Bikolnon? Aha!

And yet no personal sadness is profound enough to warrant non-forgiveness. I can forgive them. My Bikol also does not sound close to Naga Bikol but something that straddles the languor of a Sorsogon dialect and the bold rush of a Ticao inflection. So there.

So I sit up, look and listen then. They were doing a kind of travelogue and the site was Camarines Norte. They were investigating, nah, investigation is giving them too much credit… they were picnicking and along the way they thought of looking into gold panning industry in San Jose, Panganiban. It was hunky-dory trip as they looked at the “pagkakabog,” the subsistence mining act in peripheral communities. Their promenade afforded them a view of that industry where a massive amount of soil is taken from the ground and only for that small hill of earthen deposit to yield a tiny sliver of raw gold. Their walk has taken them to an impoverished village and but no talk of poverty came out of that immersion.