‘Angry Birds’

Ornithologists who take “Noli Me Tangere” as a diversion during long hours of stalking and watching birds can surely tell us what kind of “swallows” Filosofo Tasio considered his annual guests from China and Japan. In my Wednesday column I asked aloud if it was the noisy tarat a small, brown bird that resembles the common maya. A reader recommended I check out the dark blue langay-langayan. Randy David suggested I look for the tarat’s gentler cousin, the brown-tailed shrike that is part of the University of the Philippines Diliman ecosystem.

These comments led me to look up university mascots: the Mapua cardinal, the UP parrot, and the Ateneo blue eagle. Basketball being an aggressive spectator sport in the Philippines resulted in the redesign of the Mapua mascot that was originally a small red bird that got its name from the red vestments won by princes of the Catholic Church, or cardinals. Mapua Cardinals are not softies on the hard court, so the cardinal was transformed into something resembling the “Angry Birds.” (Translate that into Filipino and you get a double meaning.)

A reader from Betis, Pampanga, recalled that the tarat  flew into town each year on or around the feast of “Apung Kulas” or San Nicolas de Tolentino on Sept. 10. You will find (Pan de) San Nicolas in any Pampanga  pasalubong  shop if you walk past the  tocino  and  longanisa  stands and ignore the tempting sans rival and  tibuk-tibuk  in the sweets section. These flat and simple arrow root cookies are usually sold in pairs, each one having an image of San Nicolas impressed from antique cookie molds of Philippine hardwood. When I was a child, these cookies were stored in bell jars (garapon) and were said to be good for both body and soul.

In images, San Nicolas wears an Augustinian habit with its distinctive leather belt hanging down the front almost to the floor. He holds in his right hand a lily and in his left a pie with small birds, to remind us of this legend: Unlike most Catholics today who are required to fast and abstain from meat only on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, San Nicolas was not so relaxed and practiced fasting and abstinence the whole year round. One day he fell ill and the doctor prescribed full meals with meat to restore his health. Nicolas refused, but his superior, invoking Nicolas’ vow of obedience, ordered him to eat meat just this once. Served a meat pie, Nicolas raised his eyes and prayers to heaven—and lo and behold, the birds cooked in the pie were miraculously restored to life and flew away. My take on this legend is more practical: Imagine the mayhem at the dining room if he was served a beef or pork pie.

My Wednesday column made me realize that people still give birds a second look. We often see but fail to notice everyday things. One reader gently corrected a mistake in my column by reminding me that snipe is  kanduro  and  dumara  is wild duck. Randy David says that  adobong  dumara  is a staple at Everybody’s Restaurant in San Fernando, Pampanga, where the late E. Aguilar Cruz sourced  kamaru  (mole crickets) and  betute  (fried frogs stuffed with seasoned ground meat) that he would pull out of his clutch bag as a magician pulls rabbits out of a hat.

Part of my training as a historian and journalist is to constantly stock up on useless information that others don’t have the time for. These are useless on their own but gain relevance once you connect them. When I started to list Filipino bird terms, as Gilda Cordero-Fernando would in her “Forever 81” column in the Inquirer, I realized that  ibong  mandaragit  could mean “bird of prey”—or be the title of a novel by National Artist Amado V. Hernandez, which takes off from Rizal’s “El Filibusterismo” because Mando the fisherman finds the treasure chest thrown into the sea by Padre Florentino at the end of the “Fili,” with a curse about the wealth remaining hidden until a person of pure heart will find and use it for good rather than evil.

Sisiw can mean either a chick from a chicken or the duckling in  balut. In colloquial use,  sisiw  means “easy”—which is different from  basang  sisiw, which literally means “a wet chick” and suggests misery.  Sisiw also reminds us of Jose de la Cruz (1746-1829) aka Huseng Sisiw, the acknowledged  hari  ng  makata  (king of poets) in Manila and the teacher of Balagtas who got his nickname because he composed verse in exchange for chicks.

Birds fly, and ibong  mataas  ang  lipad  are high flyers;  ibong  mababa  ang  lipad, meaning the low flying ones, is the polite term for prostitutes. The kulasisi  is literally a hanging parrot, but figuratively it is a mistress. Terms pertaining to hawks (lawin) are used to describe people:  ilong  lawin  (hook-nosed),  kukong  lawin  (with sharp fingernails),  matang  lawin  (sharp-eyed). The last is different from matang  manok  (literally chicken-eyed), which means poor eyesight.

All Filipinos know these three:

• Aanhin  mo  ang  palasyo  kung  ang  nakatira  ay  kuwago,  mabuti  pa  ang  bahay  kubo  ang  nakatira  ay  tao  (A nipa hut with a human is better than a palace with an owl).

• Pagputi  ng  uwak,  pagitim  ng  tagak  (When the crow turns white and the heron turns black, or never).

• Isang  kahig,  isang  tuka  (One scratch, one peck, or hand-to-mouth existence).

Next time you walk outside, take the trouble to notice the birds flying about and add more phrases and words related to birds that enrich our life and language.

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