If you’ve been reading the news lately, I’m sure you’re already familiar with the names Sawsaw and Sampaw. These are names that two most powerful elected officials of our City has been hurling towards each other.
Mayor Bing Leonardia calls Cong. Tony Golez “sampaw” which means “to lay over”, because of the latter’s project of asphalt overlaying along Lacson Street. Mayor Bing says Lacson Street is still in good condition so the project is just a waste of funds and should have been used in repairing damaged roads.
Cong. Golez on the other hand called Mayor Bing “sawsaw”, meaning “to dip into”, because he said Mayor Bing has a habit of dipping his hands into his projects.
We Filipinos have a penchant for nicknames but when most nicknames or “hayo” are intended as shorter local versions of names (i.e. Pidoy for Alfredo) or simply just pet names (i.e. Ging-Ging), “bansag” are usually used in a derogatory manner to make fun of somebody.
Old folks especially those in rural areas are oftentimes known for their bansag than their real names. Most of the time the origin of these bansag are the physical attributes of a person or an embarrassing moment associated with a person. A cross-eyed person may be called “libat“or somebody who embarrassed himself with diarrhea in public may be called “lupot“.
The list goes on but usually these folks usually don’t take offense from it. Everybody who has shared a drinking session of tuba may have exchanged a friendly banter and called each other their bansag. Although there may have also been some unfortunate event where somebody chased somebody with a bolo.
We can’t expect our honorable officials to chase each other with a bolo but then they can’t blame us either if we sometimes find their “public display of affection” funny to downright hilarious.
Oh well, it only means one thing. If this name-calling is any indication, the 2013 election is going to be very exciting. We can all watch in the sidelines as the story unfolds.
Abangan ang susunod na kabanata.