Only In The Philippines - 5 Funny Signage: Why Filipinos Have To Feel It To Follow It

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?

Ever threw trash in front of a wall that that has MMDA Regulation No. 96-009 written on it?

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, 

(Agustinos)

our boss,  

(Brigada)

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.  

(PH History)

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.  

(CPCA Brisbane)

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.

We value emotions because we have tons of it –  and Gallup Poll agrees. See this Vanity Fair article:  PH is World's Most Emotional Country.    

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?

Keep Distance Brad!!!

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.

(Theparadoxicleyline)

 “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

(Marichu Lambino)

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.