Ever crossed the street even when the traffic light
says you shouldn’t?
Ever made a u-turn despite the glaring presence of
a “No U-Turn” sign?
We all have.
Why?
Because we can.
Because doing the forbidden is exciting aka “Masarap ang
bawal.”
Because it’s not really illegal unless we get caught.
Unless it’s Jesus and his earthly disciples who are making
commands,
our boss,
a charismatic Filipino TV game show host
@WowoWin7
or our mother - Filipinos are not blind followers.
Rarely do we follow anemic instructions specially those found
on public signage.
The probable reason why we don’t follow signs is because our default
reaction to commands given by any perceived authority is to rebel.
Thanks to centuries of us being the colonizee, we have
learned that the best way to rebel is indirectly.
The first time we rebelled against our first conquistadors –
the Spaniards – we killed them.
We
fought them and we won. How sweet our first taste of their defeat.
Then, they came back and killed some of
us.
When they insisted we kneel before their god; carry cedulas;
change our names to Spanish-sounding ones; and chuck out our loincloths for
baro’t saya; we did as we were told while gritting our teeth & wishing that
heaven is better than this cruel earth we were living in.
When our cup runneth over, we rebelled
by fighting until we breathed our last.
When it was America’s turn to rule us, we also rebelled via
the bloody Phil-Am War.
We are still rebelling against the Americans by taking away
their call center jobs and rooting for Pacquiao.
We later realized, after all that rebelling, that we can
rebel without having to shed blood. We also realized that our needs are simple:
we want to eat, sleep, and have sex in peace. We also discovered that we can do
all of the above while working with, not against, authority.
The end result is that we have almost perfected the art of
passive-aggressiveness: doing what we’re told to do while wishing Auntie Karma
get very creative when it dishes out doomed destiny to those who deserve it.
When we’re used to doing what we’re supposed to do on the
outside while seething violently inside, this cognitive dissonance-ish feeling
becomes a habit, if not a well-worn cultural trait.
It is now ingrained in us to rebel in any way we can,
whatever chance we get.
When someone tells us we can’t do something, but wish we
could, we still do what we want as long as we can get away with it. And we take
advantage of this opportunity to the hilt. Thus our disobedience to relatively
non-life-threatening rules and regulations. But this doesn’t mean we’re hard-hearted and won’t budge
when we should. We do give in and follow commands that recognize the humanity
in us.
Commands that jolt us out of our default rebel mode and make
us feel that the command came from a fellow human being – not a distant and
detached authority figure – touches us into submission, sometimes.
Since we Filipinos take things personally, we feel that
signage should take us personally too.
Everything’s personal to us.
Why do you think we call complete strangers “kuya”, “ate”;
or any elder as “nanay”, “tatay”, as if they’re our long lost relatives?
We even called a very celibate pope, “Lolo Kiko” because we
felt it was the right thing to do.
Something has to first personally affect us before we can
allow it to have its way with us.
A command has to touch us. We have to feel it. It has to talk to us. We’re not robots.
We disregard formal rules. We value “pakiusap” or an emphatic gesture – well-meaning
or not., violent or not.
We wear our feelings on
our sleeves. We ruffle easily. We also laugh easily – at ourselves or with
others.
These funny and emotionally-laden signage are our way of
softening a command while also highlighting its seriousness. These are proof
that we don’t mind being ordered around as long as it’s done sincerely.
1 Bawal Umihi
Dito
Everybody knows you shouldn’t pee in a public place, but
does anyone know why? This sign under SSH Magallanes earnestly, albeit angrily,
explains the reason.
BAWAL UMIHI DITO MAY CCTV
NAKIKITA NAMIN KAYO SAWANG
SAWA NA KAMI!'
(YOU CAN'T PEE HER. THERE'S A CCTV. WE'RE SICK and TIRED OF LOOKING AT YOU!)
Another sign on a wall in Pasong Tamo Makati, beside a
Japanese resto, explains in basic third grade logic why peeing in public is a
no-no. Does this remind you of your mother?
Note the three exclamation marks (because they want you to
get the message not, once, not twice, but three times).
Bawal Umihi Dito!!! Mapanghi
(YOU CAN'T PEE HERE!!! YOUR PEE STINKS)
2 Keep
Your Distance
We know what this sign means when we see it on the back of a
truck. It tells us to stay away as far as we can for safety’ s sake. But by
itself, it sounds stand-offish as if a large man with dark sunglasses wearing a
suit is pushing us away with his forceful, arrogant hand.
We don’t like it when
someone does that. So here’s a sign that says the same thing but with our
feelings, or maybe Angelina Jolie’s husband, in mind.
Besides commanding obedience, it also commands kinship.
Right, bro?
3 Bawal
Tumawid May Namatay Na Dito
The threat of impending death isn’t supposed to be funny but
it is because this sign is both a warning and a veiled threat.
“Bawal Tumawid”
should have been enough of an order. It’s brief, it saves space, it has weight.
The reader knows what not to do upon seeing it.
Adding “May Namatay na Dito” is the sign’s desperate attempt
to convince, persuade and influence your good judgment, to no avail. Last I
heard, this sign – and its other version – “Bawal Tumawid, Nakamamatay” –
hasn’t discouraged jaywalkers. Instead, it has served as a fun challenge.
Never mind the 100% chance of having an accident. Never mind
the (minumum P20,000) cost of being in an accident. All these are trumped by
the victorious feeling of crossing a street you’re not supposed to and
surviving to gloat about it – priceless.
4
Bawal
ang Tao Dito, Doon Ka sa Bangketa
A space guarded by a metal railing is not enough for us
to think we shouldn’t be there at all. Apparently, someone still has to tell us that no human of any kind or form should be
walking/standing or staying there.
Because a guard/MMDA official or any living person with good
sense probably refused this thankless and futile job, a physically inanimate
sign would have to do. But beware, though signs don’t talk, this one does. At
least, this sign seems to be talking to us as if it was channeling its inner
annoyed “palengkera” who has surrendered its fate to the stubborn pedestrian
who refuses to listen to anyone.
If this sign were a real person, it would have its lips
pursed to the direction of where you’re supposed to sit/stand/stay after
calling your mother a commercial sex worker.
5 Bawal makipagdate dito sa Basilica
Filipino signage also care about our love-lives. Like
concerned parents, it wants to keep us on the straight & narrow. It also
has eyes at the back of its head. It knows what we’re up to even before we
think we know what we’re up to. It can anticipate our dark intent.
(jacoblaneria)
So when we say we’re going to church yet mean that we’re
really having a date, coincidentally, inside a church, it knows! And it wants
you to know that it knows! So stop it!
But who’s complaining? These signage were made by us, for
us. It is us telling ourselves to behave, or else. It’s us talking to the
sensitive part of ourselves who knows that - with a little cajoling and a bit
of “lambing” - we’ll do what were told as long as we know we are being talked
to by a fellow human. Not a flat, lifeless signboard. We don’t like lifeless
commands. We disrespect it. We feel it doesn’t mean what it says. Who wants to
listen to someone who doesn’t even know what it’s talking about. We take these
funny signage seriously because, whether we admit it or not, we don’t want our
signage done in any other way.
