Duterte and the ‘laway’ statement

“Bastusin mo ako, pero kon babae ka na maganda at dinuraan mo ako, yong laway mo kunin ko. I’ll place it on my tongue, then I go to her and say, Here’s your saliva. I added my own because you’re beautiful.” --- President Duterte, Oct. 26, Bacolod City

There’s something about spit that few of us realize is true until someone else tells us about it, in a spark of brilliance or drunken wisdom. And that is: you and I can bear spit while it’s inside the body but not when it is expelled, then it becomes disgusting. Just like most waste that comes out from other parts of the body.

How about if spit is just talked about? Not seemly, it’s even coarse or gross, when you talk about spit when, say, taking a meal. Or if you’re the president making a speech.

The image

The image it conjures is that of saliva, spittle, or mucous being ejected from the mouth and landing somewhere. Filipinos don’t think of (a) light, brief shower of rain, much less the fall of snow, or (b) a lookalike (“spit and image”) -- the word’s other meanings when “spit” is mentioned.

It was OK when President Duterte used it as description of contempt or hatred. It vividly conveys the sentiment. “I spit on you” or in Cebuano-Bisaya, “Lod-an tika.”

Duterte said in his speech at the Oct. 26 MassKara festival in Negros that his critics can spit on him should he ever “contradict” himself. They can disrespect or abuse him (“bastusin mo ako”) but if it’s a beautiful woman who would spit at him, he would take the saliva or spittle and place it on his tongue, add his own spittle and offer it to the beautiful woman, telling her “here’s your saliva, I added mine because you’re beautiful.”

Tribute to beauty physical beauty? Maybe. A number of people though think it’s a word, given the context, that is better said between lovers engaged in phone foreplay or in making out in some dimly lit bar nook. Coming from the President, despite his past forays into the realm of the unbelievable, it still held the capacity to shock.

Expect the unexpected, someone said. Even the unexpected must have its limits. Now it’s expectorating saliva; next it could be defecating worse waste and giving or taking it back.

Apparently, the saliva, spittle and/or mucous, which spitting could produce from a person, wouldn’t faze the President. Most of us though may empathize with movie star Leonardo di Caprio who, recalling his first kiss, remembered how the girl unloaded “a ton of saliva” in his mouth and he had to spit out most of it afterwards.

Taking it back

The imagery produced by the President in talking about collecting the woman’s saliva, adding his own and returning it to the woman is “nakakadiri, nakakasuka” (yuck!). Perhaps Duterte meant that the process goes on inside their mouths, lips locked, just tongues working.

Take it in the context of what the President said about being spat on by critics and a beautiful woman spitting. Surely, it must not include expectorating saliva, collecting it and giving it back. That would’ve been metaphor to publicly shaming a corrupt Cabinet secretary and then consoling him by assigning him to another department where he can steal less. “Giluwa na, gitulon pa og balik.”

No cheers

The spit has proved useful to the president’s messages, including one or two that he did not intend to give. But unlike taking a drink, you don’t swallow, give or retrieve expelled spittle and say cheers.