(Community)
A balangay is a row boat that is said to have brought many of the Malay people who populate the Philippines centuries ago. The word has been changed slightly over time to barangay which means "a community of people."
The center of public administration in Los Baņos is at the bayan (town), but Los Baņos also consists of fourteen barangay. The largest barangay is Batong Malake (big stone). Its population is more than twice as large as any other single barangay. The University of the Philippines at Los Baņos is located in Batong Malake as is the principle market for the area. Because of its geographical importance, the junction of the Hi-way and the road leading to U.P. is referred to locally as "Johnson" (junction) and in Manila as "College." A barangay is simply a community, but this unit of a community is also the principal level on which social control rests. The barangay tanod manage barangay affairs, and conflicts, unless there are "casualties." The bayan police and municipal court of Los Baņos only get involved in extreme, rare cases. Barangay konsehals (male) or konsehalas (female) are elected officials responsible for forming policy. The konsehals in turn elect a barangay captain. The barangay tanod, or security force, are appointed by the captain and enforce the laws around-the-clock.
(gossip)
Two neighbors were spreading tsismis (gossip) about the pregnancy of a local woman. They were saying that the father of the unborn child was not the husband's, but the mother's lover. The husband and rumored lover retaliated with a bolo (machete) blow to the head of one sister removing part of her skull and a blow to the other sister's shoulder which partially maimed her arm. Both the women otherwise survived and the two men went into hiding.
(shame)
The PNP (Philippine National Police) I saw were generally much fatter than most people, seemed to have a haughty attitude, and looked more like glorified traffic managers than respected officials concerned with protecting society. It should be noted that the nature of the barangay as a community lends itself to a form of social control that relies on a concept known as hiya as much as it does on enforcement through the tanod or PNP. Hiya is what someone would feel if they violated the community standards and were discovered. It is shame. Similarly, someone who violates the community standards is said to be "walang hiya" (without shame).
It is difficult to overemphasize the importance of the barangay. For Karen, who grew up in Maahas, the places of importance for her were first the home; then the barangay; followed by the school which may be outside the barangay, but through high school was always in Los Baņos; and finally Manila where goods can be purchased that are unavailable in the province, where relatives are, and where most of the colleges are. The importance of the barangay can also be illustrated in these other ways. A few of the young, entrepreneurial spirited men I spoke with said they planned on spending the rest of their lives in their barangay. Many of the people in Barangay Maahas are distantly related. When Karen and Kathy Cruz left Maahas at the age of eighteen they had thought it was a long distance from their house to the Hi-way which took them to locations outside of Maahas. The distance is probably less than two hundred yards. Instead of taking the Hi-way to a friend's house they would take a circuitous path that went behind their house (there are as many or more of these paths as there are roads and the barangay officials were preparing to cement them when we were about to leave with cement provided by the bayan). Karen and Kathy had two sets of barkada, or group of friends, there was the barangay barkada and the school barkada because they often attended school outside of Maahas. A river that runs through Maahas is known by no other name than ilog (river) though there are five rivers in Los Baņos.
Family and community pressures may also help in strengthening the bonds of the barangay. Take, for instance, the warnings given to kambal not to stray into the "forest." There was a belief taught to the young girls that the villagers from a neighboring barrio named Bayog could turn you into stone if you looked into their eyes when walking on a certain foot-bridge that connects the two barrios.
Filipino joke:
What is the softest part of a woman?
The part that the bayag hits because it's an egg and it doesn't break.
If Catholicism is seen everywhere in the Philippines (with the exception of the far south, especially Mindanao), then conservative sexual morays and sexism are also highly noticeable, usually. It is not uncommon to walk up to a sari-sari store or a karinderia, and see posters of half-naked women within several feet of a shrine. Ironically, magazines depicting women in the nude are illegal. School girls are typically seen in uniform dresses that extend to their knees. Other women, until recently, were rarely seen in Los Baņos wearing shorts. Now they may wear shorts, but the shorts are rarely short enough to hint at a woman's sexuality. Women's tops are equally conservative. When a Filipino friend of ours saw a puti, or white, woman at a beach wearing a bathing suit he commented seriously, "she's looking to get raped." Seeing a woman in a movie wearing a bathing suit is akin to seeing a naked woman in a movie in America. Filipino women swimming at the same beach as the puti that was commented on all wore t-shirts over their bathing suit tops. At a swimming pool resort, the local women all wore t-shirts and shorts. On the other hand, the conservatism is one-sided as is illustrated by the fact that it is not uncommon for men to frequent beer houses.
There is also a term that is fairly unique to the Philippines, babaeros, which may be loosely translated as "playboy," but connotes something much stronger than the latter term when used in the U.S. A man may be a babaero merely because he has lots of girl friends, but no distinction is made between a married man with several girlfriends and a single man. Take the uncles of one woman: the eldest had three children with a woman other than his wife while he was married and several years separated the birth of the eldest from the youngest; the second uncle had a "second family" with at least one child; a third uncle had a child with a girlfriend while he was married as well. Their father was a father of one illegitimate child, then had seven children with his wife, followed by five additional children with his mistress. This family is not highly unusual for its philandering and Filipino Christian cultural traditions unwittingly foster such complicated family relations as these.
The conservative side of Filipino society reveals itself in the pre-marriage years when a man courts a woman. This is the time when a woman is most valued in private relations and in the business sector where her employment is overtly solicited, "WANTED: single woman with a high school diploma." The boy is suppose to befriend the family of the girl he is interested in and seek their support in his goal to take out their daughter or sister. The suitor, with his friends, often performs a harana (serenades through song accompanied with a guitar) for the object of his affection. If the girl returns his sentiments she may agree to go out with him. It is considered improper for the couple to go out together alone at first, nor is it proper for the boy to touch the girl, even slightly, except when dancing or after they have both agreed to go "steady" as boyfriend-girlfriend. This belief of not touching the girl was so strict that a term, "chancing," was created for the act of trying to hold a girl's hand as the relationship grew.
The Philippines is a land where respect is shown to beggars as well as the elderly. When a beggar asks for money, they may be ignored but it is unusual for someone addressing them not to use the terms "po" and "ho" which are terms of respect usually reserved for those older than you. Another sign of respect is a "mano" where a person places the back of their respected family elder's hand to their slightly bowed head. In this very polite society it is at first confusing to hear the car-horn blowing which occurs with an annoying frequency. After observing the drivers though, you will notice that the act of honking in the Philippines is used more as a sign of warning and politeness on roads where slow tricycles ride along with very fast busses and the expressway where speeds range from a legal minimum of about 45 kpm to a maximum of about 90 kpm, rather than as a voice of anger, spite, or retribution as is often the case in the United States.
Politeness in Filipino society is also present in the phrases they use which are never direct and are characteristically infused with humor. The Tagalog term for someone who is mayabang, or boastful, is often replaced with a more polite way of saying the same thing: "malakas ang dating," meaning "his/her arrival is strong." Then there is the softer way of saying "shut up," which is "tumigil ka," or "you stop" or "desist." A polite way to call someone a liar is: "Sa sampung sinabi niya labing-isa ang mali" which may be translated as: "Of the ten things he said, he made a mistake on eleven." Finally, if someone is trying hard to be noticed, you may hear someone else refer to that person as "k.s.p." (kulang sa pansin) which means that the person "lacks attention."
Security guards carrying shortened shotguns (that would do as much harm to innocent passers-by as to villains) and handguns seem out of place in a Filipino society that seems to be very tolerant and free of much of the crime that plagues the U.S. These guards and their weapons are seen inside and out of banks, restaurants (even the fast-food variety), and stores. It is normally a non-confrontational society, but the proverbial lid does blow off at times as was noted above in the tsismis story. Watch a typical television show in the Philippines and you will see one that is either extremely violent or illudes to violence just out of site of the viewer. The violence depicted in the movies are not limited to a few scenes, but are continuous throughout the movie. Conversely pornography is strictly restricted.
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