Getting the hang of Duterte-speak

SIX months from now every Filipino, even two-year-olds, will be very good at cursing. Even prim and proper matrons will be cursing in beauty parlors.

It will be fashionable to curse. Vice Ganda won’t have to bother to hold her tongue and just blurt out whatever she wants to say about Jessica Soho.

Cory Quirino will be swearing on her TV show. Boy Abunda and Kris Aquino will put on a revamped version of their chat show and have cursing showbiz personalities on. Even columnists will be swearing in their op-ed pieces.

Would Cardinal Tagle be spewing street oaths in his sermons? What about Archishop Soc Villegas? I doubt, though, if retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz will join the fad. He’ll be tempted to say a put...-ina here and there but generally he’ll probably maintain decorum. He’s just not the type.

At neighborhood playgrounds, mothers won’t be minding their children as they throw cuss words about. Teachers won’t bother to chastise their wards for mouthing foul words. In fact, the teachers themselves will be spicing their lesson plans with choice Duterte-isms to affirm their subscription to the New Revised Language of the Realm.

At the Binibining Pilipinas pageant, there will be a new segment in the contest where the “Foulest Speaker” will be crowned with a lot of fanfare. The president himself will be invited to crown the winner. Spelling bees will have the most difficult cuss words to test contestants.

Why all the change in everyday language?

If you didn’t know, you’ve either been away in a foreign land or you’ve gone deaf. It’s been going around, the new rage in everyday discourse in churches, offices, even at the staid banks headed by foreigners like Indians or Pakistanis. Some people call it the Duterte Tongue (DT), or ditty which means a short, simple tune.

The new rage is all because the president of the land has led the way in propagating a new way of speaking. Spice your language with a swear word here and there. That’s the way to go. It’s the way to be “in.”

Everybody is scared to speak proper English or Tagalog these days. People watch their backs in case their own neighbors tell on them if they don’t talk the way the president does.

The chief of the national police uncannily speaks like the president. If you close your eyes and hear the police chief speak, you’d swear it’s the president talking.

Members of the Cabinet, too, have taken to lacing their sentences with curse words. Dureza, Dominguez and the rest now all speak the Duterte Tongue. Panelo is a natural.

In fact, at Cabinet meetings, everybody is trying to out-Duterte each other. Even in Congress, now populated with turncoats, debates and privilege speeches are seasoned with swear words. President Duterte and his chief of police started it all.

So, a few months after July, 2016, every citizen will have become very adept at Duterte-speak. It’s not so hard to master. Start swearing with a bad word each day. Soon you’ll get the hang of it. You won’t even be told to wash your mouth with soap as before. And you won’t have to tell your parish priest at confession.

But, surprise of all surprises, things have hit a snag. The irony of it all is that President Duterte has realized how uncivil he had been all along. First Lady Honeylet, who appears to have a strong influence on her hubby, has tsked, tsked him and has extracted a promise from him to change his ways.

And he has. After six months in office, he doesn’t swear anymore. Now we all have to re-learn how to speak “clean” Tagalog and English again.

What a bummer, just as I was beginning to get the hang of Duterte-speak. As the Caucasian priests at Catholic schools used to say: “Ta.gna!” (with the first syllable pronounced as in the orange drink Tang).