“Javier, Alexander Gunab!!!”
“Ma’am, present!”
“Jovellanos, Dennis Francisco!!!”
“Ma’am, present!”
“Khan, Derrick Alan Chua!!!”
“Jovellanos, Dennis Francisco!!!”
“Ma’am, present!”
“Khan, Derrick Alan Chua!!!”
“Present!”
“Leveriza, Alberto Tan!!!”
“Leveriza, Alberto Tan!!!”
“Present”
“Maderazo, William James!!!”
“Maderazo, William James!!!”
“Ma’am, present!”
“Magallanes, Carlo Alfonso Hizon!!!”
“Magallanes, Carlo Alfonso Hizon!!!”
“Ma’am, here!”
“MAGdamo, Arni AGAWIN!!!!!!!”
(snicker, snicker)
“MAGdamo, Arni AGAWIN!!!!!!!”
(snicker, snicker)
“MAGdamo, Arni AGAWIN!!!!!!!!!!!”
(Inulit na, nilakasan pa! Bwiseeeet!)
“Ma’am, present...” (Sabay yuko sa desk…)
I sometimes think about how my family got its name. I mean, I know all about the Spanish decree that forced our ancestors to choose from a list of suggested surnames posted on a board in the plaza to keep track of all Filipino citizens during the colonial years. We studied that in grade school Social Studies. And I know that’s the reason why most Filipinos have surnames that aren’t very much unlike those in Latin American countries, and even in Mother Spain. Of course, there were obvious favorites, often with references to our Christian (or rather Catholic as majority of Filipinos were and are right now) background, like dela Cruz (“of the cross”), delos Reyes (“of the kings”, apparently in reference to the three magi), de Dios (“of God”), del Rosario (“of the rosary”), Cruz (“cross”), Reyes (“king”), Santos (“saint”). Just flip open the PLDT directory and look for people surnamed Cruz. I’d bet the listing would run several pages. Filipinos back then, as they still are now, were prolly status-conscious, and bearing a Spanish surname somehow seemed to erase, at least in their eyes, the brown complexion of the Malay race. Some of them, my ancestors included, were born of interracial hanky-panky, some legitimate, others illicit. The fiercely patriotic Filipinos must've thought it best to go for distinctly Filipino-sounding names, usually chosen from words that were derived from among the many dialects that dotted the linguistic landscape of the islands. For instance, we have Magbanua (from a Visayan word, I think), Manalo (Tagalog, “to win”), and many others like Masilungan (“to provide shade”), Liwanag (“rays of light”) and Casunuran (if I’m not mistaken, it has something to do with “following” or something akin to that). Then, of course, we have the Chinese invasion by way of trade, which brought us surnames like Sy, Lee, Tee, Chan, Chiu (Kim, the object of many pubertal and adolescent guys’ fantasies…), Tan, Gan, Mah, Pang, Peng, Ping, Pong, Pung, Pa, Pe, Pi, Po, Pu… Basta. If it sounds like something only a bell could produce, (Ping!) or prolly lifted from one of them old Batman comic books (Bang!), bet your balls on it, the person prolly is of Chinese descent. Let’s not forget the Americans and their half-a-century’s worth of occupation of our islands. These pink conquerors from the land of WalMart, plus sizes, and Spam were also known for their fondness for everything exotic. Including women. I had classmates before with surnames like Brown, Smith (although I’m thinking Smith is more of Anglo-Saxon origin), Roberts and Anderson. And I used to envy them for their really cool names.
I used to hate my surname. Magdamo. Most Tagalogs pronounce it with the accent on the first syllable. MAG-damo. If you’re not from Luzon, you wouldn’t mind this mild butchering of my surname. But Magdamo, pronounced the Tagalog way, is unflattering. Damo is a Tagalog slang for weed. Or jute. Or marijuana. So MAGdamo could mean “to smoke marijuana.” Now, if you’re a child of the 60’s or the 70’s, that could actually be pretty cool. Flower power! Righteous! Kewlness! Awesome! Yeah, baby! But I’m a child of the 80’s and the 90’s. And I didn’t find (I still don’t… neither do my friends and family) smoking marijuana (or smoking for that matter) “kewl.” I’ve had to deal with a lot of teasing from my classmates and friends every time someone mispronounces my surname. It should be pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. Mag-DA-mo. As if that wasn’t bad enough, imagine having “Agawin” for a middle name. Agawin. Tagalog for “to take forcibly.” I think in the US, the middle name refers to the second name. But in our culture, the middle name is the mom’s maiden name. And my mom’s maiden name is as icky as my dad’s surname. Arni Agawin Magdamo. Eeeewwwwkkk. Blech. And the irony of it all is, my folks’ names have rather unflattering Tagalog connotations, but their families are from the Visayas and Mindanao regions. Weird.
I actually asked my paternal lola where the name Magdamo came from. But after finding out about the origin of our surname, I felt worse. Magdamo, according to Lola Titang, is an old Visayan word which means “to multiply.” My dad was born, and grew up, in the island province of Aklan. Yep, The Aklan. Boracay. But theirs is only a branch of a clan that originated from, and still calls as its home, Davao del Sur in Mindanao. Now, as the story goes, during the Spanish occupation, a fugitive wanted by the Spanish authorities for some unspecified crime, bore the old name of the clan, even though he wasn’t in any way related to our family. To protect the family against Spanish persecution, our ancestors opted to change our surname to “Magdamo” apparently as an allusion to the growing clan. To multiply. Syempre, I had to ask what our original surname was. And she said it was… Dyaran! Carpio. Carpio! CARPIO! Dammit! Why didn’t they just stick with Carpio?! I’m sure the Spanish weren’t all that bad. I mean, they married into the family for Pete’s sake! Arni Carpio. Now that sounds really nice.
Lola Titang, on the other hand, got stuck with Magdamo by choice. She wasn’t related by blood to the Magdamos. But she married my Lolo Badong, and the rest is history. She’s a Spanish beauty. All her sisters were: Dolores, Enriqueta (Lola Titang), Virginia and Raquel. My Lola Raquel (we called her Lola Baby Pig coz she had a pig pen with lots of piglets), we were told, used to bathe in milk. I dunno if it was just one of those old wives’ tales. And Lola Titang, when she was alive, washed her clothes with and bathed in Heno de Pravia. She always smelled so good. But she was extremely austere, and we feared her a lot especially when she was younger. She had distinctly Spanish features: aquiline nose, deep set eyes. My dad looked a lot like her, except for his chinky eyes which he got from my lolo's side which was peppered with a bit of Chinese. When my lola would argue with dad, they’d burst into a litany of mixed Aklanon and Spanish. Going through her side of our family tree, the names Gomez, Regalado, Altubar and Yturriaga pop out. Nice Spanish names. Helluva lot better than Magdamo. I wonder… Wouldn’t it be nice to change my surname back into one of our family’s older surnames? Hmmm…
(Inulit na, nilakasan pa! Bwiseeeet!)
“Ma’am, present...” (Sabay yuko sa desk…)
I sometimes think about how my family got its name. I mean, I know all about the Spanish decree that forced our ancestors to choose from a list of suggested surnames posted on a board in the plaza to keep track of all Filipino citizens during the colonial years. We studied that in grade school Social Studies. And I know that’s the reason why most Filipinos have surnames that aren’t very much unlike those in Latin American countries, and even in Mother Spain. Of course, there were obvious favorites, often with references to our Christian (or rather Catholic as majority of Filipinos were and are right now) background, like dela Cruz (“of the cross”), delos Reyes (“of the kings”, apparently in reference to the three magi), de Dios (“of God”), del Rosario (“of the rosary”), Cruz (“cross”), Reyes (“king”), Santos (“saint”). Just flip open the PLDT directory and look for people surnamed Cruz. I’d bet the listing would run several pages. Filipinos back then, as they still are now, were prolly status-conscious, and bearing a Spanish surname somehow seemed to erase, at least in their eyes, the brown complexion of the Malay race. Some of them, my ancestors included, were born of interracial hanky-panky, some legitimate, others illicit. The fiercely patriotic Filipinos must've thought it best to go for distinctly Filipino-sounding names, usually chosen from words that were derived from among the many dialects that dotted the linguistic landscape of the islands. For instance, we have Magbanua (from a Visayan word, I think), Manalo (Tagalog, “to win”), and many others like Masilungan (“to provide shade”), Liwanag (“rays of light”) and Casunuran (if I’m not mistaken, it has something to do with “following” or something akin to that). Then, of course, we have the Chinese invasion by way of trade, which brought us surnames like Sy, Lee, Tee, Chan, Chiu (Kim, the object of many pubertal and adolescent guys’ fantasies…), Tan, Gan, Mah, Pang, Peng, Ping, Pong, Pung, Pa, Pe, Pi, Po, Pu… Basta. If it sounds like something only a bell could produce, (Ping!) or prolly lifted from one of them old Batman comic books (Bang!), bet your balls on it, the person prolly is of Chinese descent. Let’s not forget the Americans and their half-a-century’s worth of occupation of our islands. These pink conquerors from the land of WalMart, plus sizes, and Spam were also known for their fondness for everything exotic. Including women. I had classmates before with surnames like Brown, Smith (although I’m thinking Smith is more of Anglo-Saxon origin), Roberts and Anderson. And I used to envy them for their really cool names.
I used to hate my surname. Magdamo. Most Tagalogs pronounce it with the accent on the first syllable. MAG-damo. If you’re not from Luzon, you wouldn’t mind this mild butchering of my surname. But Magdamo, pronounced the Tagalog way, is unflattering. Damo is a Tagalog slang for weed. Or jute. Or marijuana. So MAGdamo could mean “to smoke marijuana.” Now, if you’re a child of the 60’s or the 70’s, that could actually be pretty cool. Flower power! Righteous! Kewlness! Awesome! Yeah, baby! But I’m a child of the 80’s and the 90’s. And I didn’t find (I still don’t… neither do my friends and family) smoking marijuana (or smoking for that matter) “kewl.” I’ve had to deal with a lot of teasing from my classmates and friends every time someone mispronounces my surname. It should be pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. Mag-DA-mo. As if that wasn’t bad enough, imagine having “Agawin” for a middle name. Agawin. Tagalog for “to take forcibly.” I think in the US, the middle name refers to the second name. But in our culture, the middle name is the mom’s maiden name. And my mom’s maiden name is as icky as my dad’s surname. Arni Agawin Magdamo. Eeeewwwwkkk. Blech. And the irony of it all is, my folks’ names have rather unflattering Tagalog connotations, but their families are from the Visayas and Mindanao regions. Weird.
I actually asked my paternal lola where the name Magdamo came from. But after finding out about the origin of our surname, I felt worse. Magdamo, according to Lola Titang, is an old Visayan word which means “to multiply.” My dad was born, and grew up, in the island province of Aklan. Yep, The Aklan. Boracay. But theirs is only a branch of a clan that originated from, and still calls as its home, Davao del Sur in Mindanao. Now, as the story goes, during the Spanish occupation, a fugitive wanted by the Spanish authorities for some unspecified crime, bore the old name of the clan, even though he wasn’t in any way related to our family. To protect the family against Spanish persecution, our ancestors opted to change our surname to “Magdamo” apparently as an allusion to the growing clan. To multiply. Syempre, I had to ask what our original surname was. And she said it was… Dyaran! Carpio. Carpio! CARPIO! Dammit! Why didn’t they just stick with Carpio?! I’m sure the Spanish weren’t all that bad. I mean, they married into the family for Pete’s sake! Arni Carpio. Now that sounds really nice.
Lola Titang, on the other hand, got stuck with Magdamo by choice. She wasn’t related by blood to the Magdamos. But she married my Lolo Badong, and the rest is history. She’s a Spanish beauty. All her sisters were: Dolores, Enriqueta (Lola Titang), Virginia and Raquel. My Lola Raquel (we called her Lola Baby Pig coz she had a pig pen with lots of piglets), we were told, used to bathe in milk. I dunno if it was just one of those old wives’ tales. And Lola Titang, when she was alive, washed her clothes with and bathed in Heno de Pravia. She always smelled so good. But she was extremely austere, and we feared her a lot especially when she was younger. She had distinctly Spanish features: aquiline nose, deep set eyes. My dad looked a lot like her, except for his chinky eyes which he got from my lolo's side which was peppered with a bit of Chinese. When my lola would argue with dad, they’d burst into a litany of mixed Aklanon and Spanish. Going through her side of our family tree, the names Gomez, Regalado, Altubar and Yturriaga pop out. Nice Spanish names. Helluva lot better than Magdamo. I wonder… Wouldn’t it be nice to change my surname back into one of our family’s older surnames? Hmmm…
Arni Gomez <-- Now this one's nice
Arni Regalado <-- Okaaay! Kaso, it sounds like areglado.
Arni Altubar <-- Hmmm… pwede na! Plus, my name will always be on top of an alphabetized list.
Arni Yturriaga <-- Awesome! Only down side is, my name will end up last on the class list.
But my relatives, especially those from Davao, are rabidly loyal to the Magdamo surname. Who wouldn’t be? Despite the seemingly indecent Tagalog meaning of the surname, the uber talented and insanely (and I mean that in a good way) prodigious members of our family made Magdamo “sound” better, at least in the academic and music field. I got to experience this first-hand when I somehow ended up in Dumaguete a few months ago. When people found out I carry the surname, they immediately drowned me with stories about how Silliman University, one of the top universities in this country, was built with the Magdamos figuring prominently in its ascent to the top. My mom, although not really a Magdamo, as she only wedded into the family, I would like to think, is well-respected in her field, and she’s the dean now of a nursing school. Talk about academic. And it’s quite ironic that the surname I hated so much when I was younger turned out to be one of my tickets to where I am now. I mean, if it weren’t for it, I would have ended up practicing law, and prolly quite unhappy and disillusioned. When I went to my interview at the UP College of Medicine (for admission to the Intarmed program), I was fortunate enough to have as members of the panel doctors who knew my grand aunt, at least by reputation:
Panel: So, you’re Arni Magdamo… Are you in any way related to Priscilla Magdamo?
Me: Yes, sir. I haven’t met her personally, but she’s my grand aunt.
Panel: Really? She was with the UP College of Music before.
Me: Yes, sir, I’ve been told.
Panel: So, does that mean you also sing? She’s an excellent soprano.
Me: Sing, sir? Not even if my life depended on it. No, sir… I do sing, but only in the privacy of my shower.
Panel: Ahhh, that’s too bad. The Magdamos are a musical family. Do you play any musical instrument.
Me: Yes, sir.
Panel: What instrument do you play?
Me: The piano, since I was four. And also the violin and guitar.
Panel: Ahhh, Magdamo ka nga! (laughter)
Awww, I love being a Magdamo.
Me: Yes, sir. I haven’t met her personally, but she’s my grand aunt.
Panel: Really? She was with the UP College of Music before.
Me: Yes, sir, I’ve been told.
Panel: So, does that mean you also sing? She’s an excellent soprano.
Me: Sing, sir? Not even if my life depended on it. No, sir… I do sing, but only in the privacy of my shower.
Panel: Ahhh, that’s too bad. The Magdamos are a musical family. Do you play any musical instrument.
Me: Yes, sir.
Panel: What instrument do you play?
Me: The piano, since I was four. And also the violin and guitar.
Panel: Ahhh, Magdamo ka nga! (laughter)
Awww, I love being a Magdamo.
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