A8
PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY August 1 - 15, 2016
HEADLINES
Da foint op da matter
Life etc.
by Jun Cordero
We were late in
tuning in to the opening
ceremony last week of the
Rio Olympics, and by that
time the alphabetical order
of the parade of Nations
was already somewhere in
the letter L, so we thought
we were still fortunate as
the letter P was still way
off and we still will be able
to see the Philippine team.
To our disbelief, even after
waiting until the end of
the parade, there was no
Philippine team.
I told my wife
the
new
Philippine
president might have
also “eliminated” even
the Philippine Olympic
officials for corruption.
Checking
the
internet the next
day I found out
that we totally missed the
Philippine presence cause
they marched under the
label “Filipinas”.
What the...? was my
complete reaction. All the
years that I can remember
watching every Olympics,
our country went under
the name Philippines.
The letter P, yes P, starts
the name of our country,
not F. Whoever thought of
changing that must totally
be an ignoramus - so I
told everyone.
Later on I found out
that the Brazilians (oops
sorry - the Brasilians) were
the ones who decided
to use Filipinas. Funny,
I thought we only used
Filipinas to refer to women
Republic of the Philippines
COMMISSION ON ELECTIONS
Intramuros, Manila
of the Philippines. Anyways,
I’m very convinced that
the Brasilians themselves
wouldn’t have known
about the Filipinas name
unless it came from one
of the Pilipinos (oops sorry
Filipinos) themselves. And
whoever that Pinoy (oops I
mean Finoy) is must totally
be a nut job himself.
And so I started
researching and found
an essay in the internet
that suggests the use of
Filipinas is also correct.
I also heard that there
are several nationalistic
nutjobs
back
home
who are proponents to
changing the name of the
country to Filipinas.
We all know from
history that our country
was named from King
Philip
of
Spain, not
King Filip,
h e n c e
Philippines.
What blows
me away is
that our own
alphabet
does
not
have an F so why on earth
do we use Filipinas? And
very obviously we are an F
and V-challenged people
that even if we change
it to Filipinas we will still
pronounce it as Pilipinas.
So blame it on
the Brasilians. You see,
they call their Olympic
committee as the Comitê
Olímpico do Brasil, which
isa just about right since
that’s exactly how they use
their language. But back
home we still insist on
calling ours the Philippine
Olympic
Committee.
Maybe its time to change
it as well, to something
like Komite Olimfiko ng
Filipinas. Or while we’re at
it, let’s also add F to our
alphabet. Tama’ng tama
sa kafe at fan-de-sal.
Now do you get the
foint?
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