Clarity is Charity

Herman L. Licayan

“An English man speaks with precision.”

--from the movie Mary Pappins

This is reflection if not about English; this about speaking with precision. At the
onset I have to confess that, though certainly I love English language, until now I am still
not convince why we continue imposing English language as official medium in the
classrooms, offices, and in social affairs. The emphasis on ‘precision’ here is not just in
language but ultimately in thought. Beware of those who have perfect English
pronunciation yet also having horribly confusing thoughts. Jurgen Habermas is one of
the most unbearable speakers I ever have known understandably because he is harelip yet
one of the clearest thinkers humanity has ever produced. I am writing this reflection
because I have an unsolicited impression that we Filipinos are so lax in the use of
language and that we are not so serious about its undesirable consequences because we
are thinking all the while that it is just petty and insignificant matter and therefore do not
deserved serious attention. Thus, we do not value so much the need for clear and precise
use of our linguistic expressions in spite of the fact that we, in one way or another
victimized so many times for it in small or great deal.

Gaisano ordeal
Consider my experience last week at Gaisano Mall, Butuan. I went there to buy
four monoblock chairs worth 1000 pesos.
When I was at the counter to pay, the teller asked me, “Sir, do you have a Suki
Card.”
No, my reply.
She said, “You can have it easily, Sir. Just bring your receipt to the costumer’s
service and pay 80 pesos. That’s all.”
That’s all?
Yes, that’s all.
Ok, thanks!
The next day I went back to the mall only for the Suki card bringing the receipt
and I went directly to the costumer’s service counter as I was told:
Upon presenting the receipt, teller said, “Sorry Sir, you can only avail it with the
receipt purchased on that day. Actually, you only need a purchase of at least
three hundred pesos.”
Oh, I was not told… My disappointment was beginning to arouse. So I made up
three things in my mind: costumer’s service, 300 hundred worth of purchase and a
receipt on that day, clear?
Yes, sir!
Well, I did not expect to go through such trouble but since I was already there
only for that purpose, I decided to do it anyway. And so I proceeded to the grocery
department still thinking what to buy in order to come up with 300 pesos. Anlene Gold
powder milk for my mother, I thought. Actually I just bought the same item few days
ago, but I still bought anyway. But that was only 225 pesos worth. So I went down to the
basement to look for a bathroom curtain for my rest room back home. Ninety-nine pesos
was the price. Now, I have purchased worth 424 pesos more than the 300 pesos
minimum to avail the Suki card. Immediately, I head back to the costumer’s service
expecting to get done with such a trivial transaction. But here is the real test of patience:
The teller examines the receipts and said, “Sir, di pwede! The 300 hundred pesos
worth of purchases has to be in a single receipt.”
“But miss, that’s what you only told me?” I appealed as my voice started to rise.
Sorry sir, single receipt ra gyud!
That “ra gyud” dumped my appeal. Of course I was fed up and told her straight in
a harder tone, “Would you accept this or not?”
Probably she realized it was her fault in the first place, so I got no more reply but
still she shakes her head. Knowing that she cannot do away with the mall policy or else
she might jeopardize her job, I decided to go away from the costumer’s service terribly
mad for my time was just wasted by the most unprofessional dealing with costumers for
being disserviced at the costumer’s service.
“Be clear… be clear…!” was my impatient parting words, at least I was able to
withhold the word, stupid. Actually, I feel like knocking off the teller’s head. I
never expect to have such troubles for just a Suki card. With my day ruined, I
went home because I cannot afford to spend another 300 pesos for things I do not
actually need; still I did not have the card, but bad day instead. My only
consolation was in thinking, so what if I do not have it anyway.

Petty yet common

I feel so bad because petty things like that are not suppose to ruin my day yet I
just cannot keep myself, it did. Or may be it was big. Really? Where’s the big deal? Or
may be it was petty, only prevalent. Yes, that correct. This is very common we Filipinos
deal with people. An example of a dismal professionalism we encounter everyday in all
transactions we are doing big or small. Yet complain against this manner of dealing are
only up to the street corners. It has not been discussed in any formal public forum. Well,
maybe because it is not worth discussing. Do we need to publish a very common and
ordinary story like this? Well, that is precisely the reason why I want to tell stories like
this because it is very much common in spite of the fact that it must supposedly
unacceptable in a civilized society, if we want to call ours as descent. I never heard
anybody got penalized because of such an unprofessional act. In the first place, I don’t
think we need to go to the court seeking for judicial settlement of such insignificant
issues. I am not aware if there are laws to invoke which contemplates such a minor case.
The breach of contract I think is too much. In fact, there is no contract involved.
Basically, the case and similar others, are not legal questions; it is however cultural. And
so in many instances, we tend to let the day pass and just consider it as bad day, hoping it
won’t happen again. Maybe because we have taken it as it is and so we don’t exert any
effort at all to better it. Or may be we are becoming experts in pretending that it does not
really affect our day-to-day existence, that there were no quarrels and heated exchange of
words because of this. Obviously, this is unbelievable to the man in the street, at least,
those reasonable ones.
But no matter how we try to simply ignore it, the fact is that they irritate us, a lot
of time is wasted, not withstanding that there are sometimes financial implications when
such thing happens. I remember when I went to a musical concert at PICC with my
Chinese friend. After an hour and the show has not yet started, he ask me, “One hour is
wasted, how much?” Take note: one hour gone is not just a waste of time, but also a
waste of money. Sakto pud ang intsik! When words are not faithfully followed as what
they are supposed to mean, we lost money, not just credibility. Credibility may not be a
big deal for Chinese but certainly they got a point.
Almost all of us were in one way or another, victims of vague instructions from
our superiors. In our government bureaucracies’ we are oftentimes drown and lost by the
labyrinth of red tapes given to us in installment bases, that is, you do not get all the
requirements on the first day of your inquiry once and for all. It is no seldom to find
another new requirements not given to you in advance when you follow up an important
transactions. The more frequent you go to an office for a follow up, the more
requirements are added. For example, try to secure a title of you residential lot. I would
like to give you a friendly reminder in advance if you have not been into it: expect you
will given requirements in retail or installment bases. In no way you can have it all in
your first inquiry. Anticipate that to fulfill each requirement, you have to go through a
number of another requirement of its own. Good if you will know them all from the very
start but since your knowledge is by installment, you will be coming back to those places
you had been before again and again. And if you lost your patience, it is most likely that
you give up the title or settle with fixers, that is, of course if you still have money. Thus,
you ended up having developed the virtue of patience as you mess yourself up in those
red tapes before having your lot title. At least, your patience rewards you with the title of
your lot. Some who are not patient enough simply terminated the transaction went home
not virtuous and still propertyless.
Our Filipino styles however of doing it is to look for a friend in any offices to
which we have transactions and let that friend do the job, with of course, some under-the-
table “pasalamat”. That is the most “practical” way of doing it. We call it, accepted
practice yet why we are doing it like sneaky people under the table? The truth is what we
think as accepted is in fact not accepted otherwise we do it in the open. We all know it is
illegal. But then again, it is another dismal professional practice for there are others who
are not lucky enough to have a friend inside to facilitate their papers according to
common practice, and so they are condemned to fall in the unmovable queue of clients
hoping for their transactions to be accommodated only God knows when it will be almost
something like Samuel Beckett’s Vladimir and Estragon in the Waiting for Godot. Well,
at least, these two fellows spent their time meaningfully, ours on the contrary is in misery
and madness. There we are; we are in fact reinforcing such poor professional practice,
instead of trying to correct it. I know Filipinos find this practice unbecoming yet the
thing that scandalizes me is the fact that it is not popularly resisted; worse, it is reinforced
by many including those who abhor it. But our abhorrence is only up to the fact
somebody gets ahead of us, not on the process that gives birth to this unfairness. In fact,
we enjoy it if we are the ones who happen to have the advantage over the others.
But to reasonable people, no one likes experience like this. But when it becomes
highly prevalent practice in most offices, be it in government or in private, it is not
unreasonable to take it as an act of tacit acceptance in our cultural milieu. This is I think
worse than legally criminalizing it. When things become cultural, no effort will be made
to change it, it will just be a matter of getting use to. Unfortunately, this, I think, is what
happens to us.
Vague instructional language is symptomatic to Filipinos’ confused minds, and
being care-free in the use of our ordinary expressions. Would we be offended if we
receive some comments that we Filipinos lack clarity of minds and precision of
language? If we do, then try to notice critically the way your boss or your mom or a
friend, etc. gives his/her instructions; and even you yourself sometimes if not being
careful. In my formation years, since all of our superiors were Italians we use to
complain that they have not yet understand Filipino culture and therefore they have hard
time in dealing with us, Filipino seminarians. This seemed to be a very legitimate
complains. But, I recall, one of the superiors would cleverly reply, “Yes. That’s true, we
don’t understand Filipinos, but Filipinos also do not understand each other.” Parang
totoo rin! Mura’g insulto ba, pero duna’y kamatuotran. In fact, it reduces us to silence.

Ways to improve
There is a truism in this. Because we live in language everyday, most often we
take it for granted. Among people whom we share the same language, there is the
tendency to rush delivering our ideas and sometimes mindless of whether or not one has
been thoroughly understood. And sometimes a subordinate simply nod everything to the
incomprehensible instructions from his temperamental boss only to get away from his
presence but then realized on the way that he/she actually did not get anything of the
instructions and so he asks his/her fellow, “what did our boss say?” Remember language
is not just use in order to express but also to communicate. Examples can be multiplied
but the message is clear. WE GOT TO BE CLEAR OF WHAT WE WANTED TO SAY
AND BE CLEAR IN SAYING IT.
Clarity however is not that easy to practice. Methods of clarifying our meanings
as expressed in our language are practically too tedious for a man in the street and I don’t
think that we Filipinos mind ourselves of bothering it. Suggesting an analytic method for
language clarification is too far-fetched and remote to an ordinary person. Yet even if we
simply invoke our common sense, it would already suffice to initiate to create a
community of speakers who are sensitive to the innate logical mental structure of their
listeners, more disciplined, precise, and concise in employing our language most
importantly in giving instructions. The manner of using our language expressed in all
forms of communications indicates the character of mind’s disposition that we have
inside. Just remember: people don’t see our minds, they hear our words; they don’t have
access with our ideas, they can only deal with it on the bases of our capacity to articulate
them; they are not aware of our sentiments, they can only be sensitive of them in a
manner that we describe them in language we expressed. The satisfaction of our need to
be understood depends on how we expressed ourselves clearly. Don’t just rely on good
faith, only God knows your good intention, expressed yourself clearly if you want to be
understood. And don’t just presume to be already understood, think of the other who
knows nothing about the things left unsaid. The presumption of being understood breeds
false expectation on your part. And in such a case, more often than not the burden of
guilt falls on the other who cannot be your superior. In times of confusion and
misunderstanding, at least in our context, it is authority (gulang) that prevails, not reason.
So there goes the saying, “The boss is always right.” That complicates the whole thing.
Clarity is charity. The failure of clarity ruins your day for not being understood and ruins
your listener’s temper for spending the rest of the day getting mad at you for not being
clear. Don’t just expressed yourself but communicate. Foreigners, unfamiliar with
Filipino way of doing things, get sick with it. Think of your similar experience.

Klaro para nako

But what do we mean by clarity in the first place? Our common mistake is not
that we think in a way that clarity is not necessary. Of course, we understand the need to
be clear. This is not what we are insisting. The problem that we are dealing here is the
attitude to presume our clarity, at least in so far as we are concern yet consequently we
boggle the mind of others. In other words, the problem is we think we are already clear
yet not really clear enough to others. This is what Wittgenstein warned us that meanings
of linguistic expressions must be understood in the context of how it is use in a particular
language-game. And the problem arises when we presume that our hears are playing the
rule of the language-game we are using. When we demand for clarity, we mean clarity
on the part of the hearers not just of the speakers. Certainly the customer service tellers
though she was already clear enough and perhaps to the other salesperson at the mall.
She was however remiss in asking to herself whether or not she was already clear to me
and to possible other costumers. This is a common mistake which if an attempt is made
to meticulously inquire about the subject, people might have an impression that such is a
sheer pedantry and therefore, pinolosopo. This may not be fair. The other may only be
just a stranger to the language-game we are used to. Vague language can be understood
only among people belonging to a certain forms of life. It is perfectly natural for people
who share certain aspect of life to also share a language-game with its particular
meanings. In such a case, gay-language can easily be understood among the gays,
economic terms are better understood by economist, theological concepts are very much
familiar by clergies, etc. In all forms of life, there are language-games which are played
by those members sharing the same forms of life. In such a case, even analytically vague
expressions can be understood. For instance, a boy taking care of his old and sickly lolo:

Lo, kaon na lagi Lo aron ka mabaskog.

Di naman gyud nako kaya Dong…
Sige na Lo, bisa’g duha nalang ka kutsara…
[Buang-buang kamay diay, di na gani ko katon ug lugaw, kutsara naba.]

For us Bisaya, this conversation creates an emotional impact because the Lolo, the
Apo, and we are all playing the same language-game. The phrase kaon ug duha ka
kutsara does create any confusion at all simply because we assume it means eating food
not spoon. The Bisayan sense therefore is pretty much obvious. Yet if we are to detach
the conversation from its “life forms”1 and let the statements be uttered by people of
different language-games, there the impact becomes ridiculous and that might turn into a
joke. Take for instance if the Lolo has an American life forms then he may not
appreciate what the grandson has said. We are fond of having the expressions: isa
nalang ka baso Bay!, or kaon lang bisa’g tulo ka kutsara! Or grabing kaon Bay, hurot
tulo ka bandihado!, etc. If you translate these expressions literally to your American
1
Wittgensteinian sense in Philosophical investigation(PI)
friend, these will sound absolutely horrible. For Westerners, they are definitely clearer, a
glass of, what? And so, they are very precise by saying, a cup of tea, or a glass of milk, or
a bottle of beer, etc.
We so must pay attention, not only to our mode of expressing our language
especially if out hears is outside players of the language-game. This requires a lot of
charity to be sensitive about this or else we might be throwing judgments to others as
dump, or stupid for not getting what we want them to understand. This is a common
mistake committed in our ordinary affairs that ruins a lot of domestic relationships. It is
true that when we speak, we are expressing ourselves; but the very reason why we
expressed is that we need to be understood through communicating something from us.
Hence, if we want that our message reaches the other as we want it to be then we must
articulate it in a manner that cater the understanding of the other, not our own for
certainly we know clearly what is in us. Let us face it, there are peculiar linguistic
expressions people are using in every walk of life which are not familiar to other people
even to those sharing the same language be it in schools, offices, churches, communities,
etc. Having the same language is just not enough. It is the particular context which
created the sense of the expression and people alien to the context are naturally alien too
to such expressions so that no matter how familiar one may be of a certain language that
does not a guarantee accurate grasp of people’s use of linguistic expressions. By sense
we mean cognitive meaning. One must take it into account especially in personal and
ordinary conversations for better understanding.

The problem with presumption

We all can hardly do away with presumptions. People who do not have any iota
of doubt with their knowledge are the greatest presumptuous of all. The presumption of
clarity is the reason that gives birth to a lot of misunderstandings and confusions.
Philosophers are accused of making simple things complicated. The fact is things are just
not simple no matter how we wish they are, and that precisely we simplify them but the
act of simplifying appears to the naïve as complicating. That mess up the whole thing.
We tend to presume things are clearer to the other, and the other too thinks that what has
been said is already clear to him/her only to realization things are not happenings as you
want them to be. If then we cannot do away with presumption, at least, we must be
aware that what we are doing indeed are not solidly founded knowledge about truth and
reality but mere presumptions simply for heuristic reasons. Our awareness of such
intellectual limitations serve as always reminders that truth is that which we approximate,
and that taking them as how other people understood them may not be helpful in many
times. Thus, being clear is not about being pedantic or meticulous, in our context, we
often use the word ‘pilosopo’; it is in fact about being charitable; it is in fact foreseeing
possible confusion and therefore avoiding it; it is not about finding mistakes rather it is
evading mistakes before it happens. It is love, it is charity.