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Rallyista, manikurista et al.

While watching the TV news the other day, an increasingly common Pilipino term caught my eye: rallyista. It comes from a usual Pinoy way of coining new words by combining a rootword – in this case the English rally – and the Spanish suffix -ista (“one who engages in or advocates a certain activity or belief”).

To see how widespread this practice is, just consider fashionista, Atenista, elitista, Coryista, punkista, sadista, karatista, manikurista and a slew of other street-popular -ista tags. These, on top of the more traditional political terms like Nacionalista, komunista, sosyalista, aktibista, imperyalista, and terorista.

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The recent spate of rallyista actions leading to May 1, indeed, the whole chain of political events since the Hello-Garci scandal blew open last year, made me reflect on how mass media continually seeks to find the right terms to describe these events so they will stick better in the public mind.

It’s not that media is new to the terminology of street politics. After all, urban protests have been with us since the student days of Rizal at UST, when native scholars protested against the racist remarks of Spanish cleric-professors, using declaraciones and pasquinades (that would be slogans, placards and posters in the modern-day setting).

Later, the pages of La Solidaridad and the Propaganda Movement would enrich the incipient Filipino activist vocabulary with Spanish-derived terms like manifesto, propaganda, reforma, and the ultimate “R” word itself, revoluccion.

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These old terms would reecho throughout the US colonial period and the post-war Republic. They would be given new vigor and native form by mass protests of workers, peasants and student youth, which persisted despite the repressive measures of American and later Filipino authorities.

More Spanish-derived (and increasingly, Hispanized or Filipinized English) terms would enter Pinoy protest vocabulary, such as unyon, welga, barikada, demonstrasyon, nasyunalista, Sakdalista, sosyalista, komunista, burges.

More Filipinized terms were added by the activists of the 1960’s leading up to the First Quarter Storm of 1970 and subsequent protest upsurges – masa, aktibista (and its martial-law-era reincarnation, tibak), tsapter, protesta, plakard, istrimer, YS (youth-students), TU (trade unions), petiburgis, tuta, reaksyunaryo, and pasistang rehimen, among thousands of others.

Many of these are now standard coinage among hardnosed journalists and other street-wise writers – proof that the progressive or national-democratic movement’s ideas and words have become part of Pinoy mainstream consciousness.

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I’m proud to have been part of FQS-era activism. Thus, rightly or wrongly, I tend to stick to old-fashioned FQS terms, and wince mentally each time I hear some of the newer activist word usage.

For example, while we also used the term martsa-rali, most of us favored the generic demonstrasyon, shortened to demo (we weren’t aware yet that many aspiring musicians were also struggling to bring their own demos to fruition). Others joined mass actions (also called MA’s, definitely not to be confused with that other MA that comes after BS or AB, which would have overjoyed our parents). When our rally was not big enough to occupy the streets and plazas, we kept it indoors and called it a sympo – short for symposium.

Most present-day terms like protesta, aksyong masa, martsa-rali, piket-rali, lakbayan, porum, misang-bayan etc. are welcome additions that reflect the immense diversity of protest forms.

I have only one really big problem with a hideous term – mob. It clearly evolved from the acceptable mobilisasyon, but carries a repulsive connotation in standard English.

Whoever first popularized this term mob was not thinking at all. It’s like supporting a candidate with an excellent agenda and a good name, and then thoughtlessly using a childhood nickname like Bobo for campaign posters that will surely make him the butt of jokes. Iboto si Bobo? Sali tayo sa mob? What the...?

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I’m also a bit concerned with the overuse of the term militante. Read today’s papers and listen to radio-TV news, and you will surely get an overdose of reportage about militants planning this, militants opposing that, militants being dispersed and arrested, militants fighting back.

Is there anything wrong with being militant? None of course, despite Western media’s tendency to associate militancy with terrorism, as in its constant reference to “militant Islamic suicide bombers.” Considering the brazenness of GMA’s schemes and tricks, protest actions should certainly show boldness and militancy.

But there is a danger of misplaced emphasis. Repeated media reference to “militant groups” may tend to create the wrong conception that only militant activists join rallies. Media over-obsession with dramatic gimmicks like lie-ins, effigy-burnings, flag-waving and slogan-chanting may tend to gloss over the most important attribute of any mass protest action – its overwhelmingly mass character in pursuit of legitimate demands.

If a protest action involves, not thousands or tens of thousands of ordinary folk, but merely a hundred or so flag-waving and slogan-chanting activists – who say they are joining a mob and are constantly referred to by media as mga militante – then just imagine how this would distort public perception of mass protests.

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Journalists should not avoid the term militant where it is apt. But we should also use other terms depending on the event. We should welcome the use of other terms like progressive groups or progressives, mass organizations, NGO’s or cause-oriented groups (as was the practice in 1983-1986), or more direct to the point, masang nagpoprotesta. These terms emphasize the mass basis and legitimate content of the protest, not merely its militant form.

And so, this May 1, it shouldn’t matter whether you are militante or militarista, aktibista or manikurista, masa or elitista, punkista or fashionista. We are all lupaypay na sa krisis, and there is no other way out but to register our protest and pursue our legitimate demands in our thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions. These are times when ordinary folk should become rallyista.

Romancing the sword (1)
Romancing the sword (2)
Romancing the sword (3)

(Email your feedback to jun@nordis.net)

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