Pasintabi

Pinoy Kasi : 'Pasintabi'

First posted 01:16am (Mla time) April 21, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the April 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

IN MOST languages in the Philippines, we say "Tabi po" or "Tabi-tabi po," with a few variations such as the Ilokano "bari bari." The message is the same: "Please step aside." It's a way of excusing ourselves as we intrude into someone's territory.

What's so intriguing is that we are addressing the "unseen" here, supposedly spirits inhabiting the place. We can't really tell where the spirits are and so to be safe, we excuse ourselves just to be sure we don't anger the inhabitants disturbed by our intrusion.

Filipino males are especially vulnerable, with their penchant for seeking instant bladder relief anywhere. Failure to excuse oneself might lead to the unseen getting drenched, followed by vengeance in the form of the shower-giver getting sores and wounds that don't heal or, worse, a swelling of the offending anatomical part.

In Jesus' name

The practice is called "pasintabi" in Tagalog, sometimes translated as an "apology." But it is really more of an "Excuse me, please." It's a way of acknowledging that certain places are sacred, requiring some respect. Places that elicit this feeling of sacredness tend to be the more pristine, such as thick forests, a river that still runs vigorously-in other words, any place that inspires awe.

The practice is slowly disappearing. One contributing factor is life in the urban jungle, where nothing's sacred anymore, although I do know quite a few males who still excuse themselves out of habit even as they use one of Bayani Fernando's pink urinals. "You never know," says one friend, while I fret not so much about the unseen spirits than about the electrical post possibly having stray live wires.

The disappearance of “pasintabi” reflects the way our mind-sets have shifted. We no longer fear nature, feeling we've conquered her. I thought about this angle when two of my Protestant students recently shared about a shift in this cultural practice. Evangelical pastors have encouraged a new practice: as one goes through an unfamiliar area, he should not say, "Tabi po," but should instead utter, "In Jesus' name." The evangelicals' assumption here is that there are indeed spirits, and that they are malevolent, therefore one invokes Jesus' name to tell them to step aside.

I'm ambivalent about this new practice. On one hand, it tends to reflect the way we look at our position, as humans, as being one of dominating and conquering nature, maybe even invoking the name of Jesus as we do this. But I did get another take on this practice when I shared this bit of information during a speech at a recent conference on Population, Health and the Environment. After my talk, one of the Protestant pastors in the audience came up to me and gave me another interpretation: Invoking Jesus' name is intended to be a way of dealing with one's fears.

Fear

Fair enough. But that observation did remind me again of our own collective mixed feelings about nature. I've written in the past about the way we want to think we've come to dominate nature, and yet deep down, especially when natural disasters strike, we are really terrified by nature. Unfortunately, that fear of nature is misplaced. Instead of excusing ourselves as we intrude into nature, we now try to obliterate nature.

The disappearance of “pasintabi” accompanies our growing denial about the many ways we contribute to the destruction of the environment. At the Population, Health and Environment conference, I focused on the blinders we have about the link between population growth and natural disasters. Let's look quickly at the recent tragedy in the village of Guinsaugon in Southern Leyte province. There were 1,600 people living in 40 hectares of land. I did some quick conversions and realized that meant a population density of 4,000 per square kilometer. That's way above the already crowded national average, which is 255 per square kilometer, and certainly, for an upland area, that kind of density is suicidal.

I am not blaming the people of Guinsaugon. We should be examining our conscience, as a nation, in continuing to insist that there is no population problem, that it's all right to continue to take over whatever land there is and to marginalize the poor and powerless, driving them to live in harm's way. Guinsaugon reminds us that we need to be looking at other similar areas courting disaster (the summer season makes me think of Baguio's hillside shanty colonies).

The practice of “pasintabi” reminds us that there is room for co-existence, co-evolution. We can use nature's resources, as long as we are respectful, mindful of the need to use these resources wisely, recycling and replacing whenever we can. I can even envision a new take on the use of "In Jesus' name." Rather than seeing nature as being populated by evil spirits, we need to see nature as a generous host offering us her home, with complete freedom. We may feel uncomfortable and fearful at times, visiting her huge mansion, and so maybe for some people, "In Jesus' name" might be appropriate. But wouldn't it be ridiculous now to invoke Jesus' name against the host who has offered us her home?

Eventually, we might be able to achieve a more sensible balance in the way we look at nature: less fear, more respect. Nature and her "spirits" have almost always been the ones to step aside; maybe sometimes, we too should reciprocate this graciousness.

Nature watch

Today is Earth Day, so here's a little present, a nature watch, which I hope to do regularly, with some help from readers.

I was surprised at how many of my friends commented favorably on my last column, "Quiet time," especially how it alerted them to the splendor of the trees around us. But our blindness to the flowering trees is another example of how we've lost our sense and sensibility around nature.

A friend of mine recently sent an article about how the Japanese wait, each year, for the cherry trees (sakura, sakura ...) to blossom -- a way of marking how spring has truly arrived. So concerned are the Japanese about the cherry blossoms that the government is expected to issue accurate predictions, much like the weather, on when the blossoms are due.

We don't need to be so obsessed, but I'd like to encourage the development of a sense of our own seasons, marked by blooming trees and shrubs. The yellow flame trees I wrote about lost their flowers over the Holy Week, a reminder of how ephemeral beauty can be. But we still have the golden shower trees (there are some particularly splendid examples along Hemady Avenue in Quezon City). You might also want to visit the University of the Philippines (UP) campus in Quezon City, where kapok trees near the Lagoon and the Palma Hall parking lot have been "snowing" over the last few days.

In a few weeks, expect UP to be covered by the crimson canopies of fire trees. I'll try to get the word out as soon as they bloom, and hope other readers will alert me as well to nature's other dramatic shows.

Tabi po...