"Yari"

Pinoy Kasi : ‘Yari’

First posted 00:09am (Mla time) June 21, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A13 of the June 21, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

“WALANG mangyayari” [“Nothing will happen”], Jun argued. He was shrugging off the possibility that he would get Lizette, his live-in girlfriend, pregnant. (I’m not using their real names.)

Times are hard, he acknowledged, and he and his girlfriend can barely make ends meet. She works as a waitress while he picks up casual jobs here and there. They pay P3,500 a month, almost half of their combined income, for a 4-square-meter room in one of Quezon City’s slum colonies, where I’ve been conducting research.

He’s 24, married but separated. She’s 21 and agreed to live in with him a month after they met. He’s had a string of live-in partners and says he fell in love with Lizette because she was “decent,” unlike his previous girlfriends, and yet willing to live in with him.

Both of them agreed a baby was out of the question and yet they were not using any reliable family planning method. When he first told me, “Walang mangyayari,” it was said in a boastful tone. Occasionally, he’d use withdrawal and he was sure this was effective because of his prowess with “timing.” When I explained that a pregnancy could still occur even with small amounts of ejaculate, he looked incredulous.

The next time we talked, he was still adamant that nothing would happen, but was clearly less confident. He rambled about how he had an hernia operation three years ago and that had probably made him sterile, comparing the operation to a vasectomy. When I explained how different the two operations were, he shrugged: “It’s all the same. When they operate you there, it weakens your sperm. Look, none of my other live-in partners got pregnant.”

“How sure are you?” I threw the question back at him, and he seemed almost titillated by the idea that he might have sired children -- and escaped. “Problema nila ’yan” [“That’s their problem”], he said, referring to his former girlfriends.

He said he and Lizette monitor her menstrual cycle, but when I asked him when a woman was fertile during her menstrual cycle, he mumbled something about five days before and after -- a common and dangerous misconception.

Each time I ask him what he would do if something does happen, he shoots back, “Di, ipalaglag” [“Then have it aborted”]. He says Lizette has agreed as well to an abortion, if something happens.

PMS

This year, of the 2.4 million pregnancies that will occur in the Philippines, more than half will be unplanned and unwanted, many occurring in circumstances similar to what I have just described.

One of my anthropology students, a Catholic nun, is finishing her dissertation with “May Nangyari Na” [“Something’s Happened”] as the title, describing the lives of young women, no, girls, who get pregnant before marriage.

Don’t imagine “liberated” girls in Metro Manila who sleep around, those women are usually smart enough to protect themselves. We’re talking here about girls from very impoverished families, who fall in love with boys as poor as they are but who are able to seduce their girlfriends with promises of a better life. Many will describe how almost accidental the sex was, sometimes only occurring once but leading to a pregnancy.

When something happens, an abortion is one option, often suggested by the girl’s own mother, who knows what pregnancy will mean for their family. Others, again often parents deciding for their children, will march the young lovers to church, or to a judge, for a quick wedding. The baby is born, and is soon followed by another one. They come in succession, but no one’s concerned about these pregnancies because they occur within marriage.

Like Jun and Lizette, almost all of the girls interviewed by my student got little or no information about sex from their parents, except of course for the usual warnings about premarital sex and the shame that a pregnancy would cause.

We’re fixated over premarital sex as the problem, even coining the abbreviation PMS to describe it. But we do little to talk about sex, about learning to be more discerning with relationships. All we do is to tell our young that PMS is wrong. We also tell them sex should always be accompanied by love. So when two young people fall in love, they figure yes, PMS is “wrong,” but maybe they’re in love and that love makes the sex “less wrong.”

Homes are silent about sex. And so are the schools. When the Department of Education came out recently with modules for students in public high schools teaching them about family planning and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, the “pro-life” groups protested, claiming this will just encourage the young to have sex. Conservatives threatened to file charges against the education secretary, through the Office of the Ombudsman. The secretary has since suspended the distribution of the modules.

What about the health centers? When I asked Jun why he and Lizette couldn’t at least get some advice from these centers, he said it was shameful (“nakakahiya”) since they were not married.

Power and ‘yari’

“Walang mangyayari.” “May nangyari na.” The two phrases have haunted me the last few weeks because of the interviews with Jun, and because of my student’s dissertation. “Yari” is the root word here, related to “ari,” one’s possession. “Yari” is also the root for “kapangyarihan,” or power. Power is so closely tied to control or possession of something or someone, which allows a person to make things happen (or, if we are to believe Jun, to make things not happen).

It’s not surprising “yari” has sexual meanings as well: It can also mean to “have sex.” And “ari,” well, can refer to the genitals. “Yari ka!” is also used in a way similar to the English “You’re screwed,” meaning you’re in deep trouble now. “Yari ka” can be a warning, or a threat, coming from someone powerful. And the one on the receiving end will sometimes respond, in despair, “Yari ako” [“I’m screwed”].

Ideally, two people involved in a sexual relationship should be equally empowered, but in the real world, many relationships are skewed, with one partner much more powerful than the other. But the worst cases are those we find with our young people, where both parties are disempowered. Sure, Jun reeks of machismo, but his boasting about being able to control himself is empty, and betrays powerlessness. Perversely, it is this powerless boasting, “Walang mangyayari,” that eventually leads to a pregnancy, which is then described as “may nangyari na.”

The “pro-life” groups claim that the Department of Education’s modules on sex will encourage young people to have sex, and that the materials don’t have enough warnings about the dangers of contraception. The conservatives seem to underestimate themselves. Like many other young people, Jun and Lizette have heard the myths being spread by these moralists about pills causing cancer, about condoms having holes. Jun even echoes something he heard during a priest’s homily: “You shouldn’t use condoms with people you love.”

“Yari tayo.” [We are screwed.]