“With Nick Joaquin as its foremost exponent, it can be said then ‘the pun also rises’ to hit a new level in Philippine literature”
Did you know? There’s a street in Cabanatuan City within the vicinity of NEUST, or the Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, where people have been flocking to lately.
The street is named after Manuel Tinio, folk hero and youngest general in the Katipunan-era Revolutionary Government.
Cashing in on the popularity of this street corner, an enterprising man put up a carinderia and named it “Kanto Tinio”!
Old hat, but catchy and Rabelaisian, don’t you think?
It’s one hell of a marketing come-on, far hotter than the summer heat index in the 40s in this area.
The general must be turning in his grave because of this irreverence. I don’t mean to offend or disrespect anyone, but this only goes to illustrate just how creative and playful the Novo Ecijanos can be.
Farther down the road, with greasy spoons and lunch counters, chances are likely you will end up in another pun-laden place called Bebicomebaka. Bibi (duck) and baka (cow).
In English, it means “Baby come back,” a lamentation (probably from a jilted lover) with a gastronomic twist.
The entrees there must be so appetizing to refuse that a fitting tagline would be something like “Babalikcarinderia”! For this delightful one-liner, credit goes to this paper’s Opinion Editor.
Somewhere in Magalang, Pampanga, Internet cafes have mushroomed, and this one gets a good rave for its offering: Kanto’t Coffee.
And farther north, travelers – this was before the global health emergency in 2020 – along the meandering MacArthur Highway that goes up to Ilocos Norte – one roadside eatery aptly called Goat-together in Pangasinan offered nothing but different cards of goat meat.
Still, along the same highway, one was a big winner for Ilokanos, particularly the distaff side. The Barya Balls eatery offered, among others, batillog: bangus, tilapia, and itlog, with free second serving.
How the womenfolk chuckled and loved batillog.
These are just a few examples of the wit and humor embedded in the Filipino pysche.
Billboards also abound with humorous quips. This ad display for an optical store which proudly claims wearing its eyeglasses improves one’s vision. The intended line “I love you Ruby” becomes “I love you Rudy” to dramatize the plight of the vision impaired.
From Ruby to Rudy, it’s a promotional blitz that has become a head turner and no one has seen ruby-red faces since the “mistake” is intentional.
In some instances, we Filipinos are also capable of pungent sarcasm.
Just for the “funds” of it, newsmen will agree.
There are no hot potatoes even in the case of “confidential funds” which aren’t peanuts, figuratively.
This topic has been the butt of joke a few months ago when lawmakers scrutinized the budget of each department. Before we get ahead of the real put-down, let’s step back in time. (Sound of wind chimes ringing…)
Who could forget the election campaign slogan of Inday Sara Duterte?
“Inday will always love you” helped her garner a landslide victory at the polls.
Later into her vice presidency, the controversial issue of confidential funds broke out.
A Facebook user, commenting on Carol MacGregor’s FB page, wrote in mocking fashion: “Inday will always rob you!”
This is a stinging yet unproven sally and I believe it’s foul to utter this phrase. It’s even unthinkable.
But then again, the Bard of Avon in “Macbeth” once said: “Foul is fair and fair is foul.”
That is antimetabole, the repetition of words in successive clauses. That Netizen, obviously not an Inday fan, is now humming another tune, and it’s not Whitney Houston’s coda.
In the newspaper industry, headline writers are among the creative and highly imaginative lot.
Pun and double-meaning words are trade tools.
The National Artist for Literature Nicomedes “Nick” Marquez Joaquin tops my shortlist of favorites.
Writing for the Philippine Graphic magazine, he had crafted a story on the then rising Ferdinand Marcos Jr with this title, “The Son Also Rises” when he became vice governor of Ilocos Norte in 1980 at the age of 22.
It is a most appropriate takeaway from the first book of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun also Rises,” befitting their stature as literary giants.
(Editor’s note: The British economist Gregory Clark published in 2014 ‘The Son Also Rises’ which is a non-fiction book on the study of social mobility. ‘The Sun Also Rises,’the first novel by the American writer Ernest Hemingway, published in 1926, portrays travelers watching bulls running and the bullfights).
With Nick Joaquin as its foremost exponent, it can be said then “the pun also rises” to hit a new level in Philippine literature.
*A book “The Pun Also Rises” – by John Pollack, a former World Pun Champion and presidential speechwriter for Bill Clinton – explains why puns matter and published in 2011, seven years after Joaquin’s death.
(The author served the Manila Standard as Managing Editor for 15 years until 2021.)
