Familiarity breeds contempt

This Vedic wisdom seems lost among many members of the Philippine Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Congressional hearings are formal occasions and should therefore be conducted as such. But no! Many of them address their fellow members as say, “Senator Bato, Congressman Dan, etc.” Many of them even address resource persons in the second person informal pronoun vernacular as “ikaw, ’iyo, mo, etc,” instead of the formal “kayo, ninyo, etc.”

I have observed how members of the United States Congress address each other, as in the case of Rep. Adam Schiff, (D, California) who referred to fellow congressman as “Mr. Gates, (R, Florida), or to partymate Daniel Goldman (D, NY) as “Mr. Goldman.”

The “familiarity breeds contempt,” which has Vedic in origin was later mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer in his 1300s work, “Tale of Melibee.”

I learned this wisdom from my first year high school teacher decades ago but still remember it until now.

RAMON MAYUGA,

ramon.mayuga49@gmail.com