Covidese

A new world language is emerging around COVID-19. Like World English, it has variations from one country to another, picking up local terms and, like the coronavirus, mutating. I’ll concentrate on this Covidese (you know, as in Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, etc.) as it is developing in the Philippines.

Many of the terms are, of course, from medicine and public health. Coronavirus seems to be the preferred term to refer both to the virus and the illness, but COVID is used too, minus the 19; and a surefire indicator that the word has become part of our culture, I hear of babies (as well as puppies) being named COVID, or variations in the pronunciation.

Early on we saw an alphabet soup of abbreviations introduced: PUI — people under investigation, for those who had to be quarantined and tested because they may have been infected; and PUM — people under monitoring, a more vague term that fell into disuse. Government later replaced PUI with “suspect,” but people continue to interchange the two terms. I’ve been uncomfortable with these terms because they are from police jargon; what with “investigation” and “suspect,” we may as well call confirmed cases convicts.

Curiously, the government has picked up on another term — persons deprived of liberty or PDL, to refer to prisoners. I think the term is a ridiculous euphemism. Prisoners are prisoners, and in COVID times, not only are they deprived of liberty but are also made so vulnerable to COVID-19 outbreaks, which have already happened in several prisons, affecting not only PDL but the police guarding them (hmm… do I hear PGPDLs).

Frontliners became a popular term quickly, referring mainly to doctors, nurses, and health professionals putting their own health and lives at risk by caring for COVID-19 patients. Essential workers was a broader term referring to people who were allowed to move around because they had to man (and woman) hospitals, groceries, drugstores, and other essential services.

Alas, there were many people, mainly contractual workers from the provinces, who were stranded in cities. Government had a term for them: locally stranded individuals (LSIs).

With what is now the longest lockdown in the world, the Philippine versions—ECQ (enhanced community quarantine), GCQ (general community quarantine), modified, enhanced, extreme—have become part of everyday language. But lockdown is used generically, and with an ominous tone, as when overzealous local government officials decide to not just lock down barangays, but also to lock in residents in their homes.

“Ayuda,” the Spanish word for help, emerged as the preferred term for government assistance, particularly food packages. It remains specific for government assistance; you don’t hear people calling out “Ayuda, ayuda!” when they need help, “tulong” remaining in use.

The term “non-pharmaceutical interventions” or NPIs (international bureaucrats love abbreviations) to refer to preventive measures never caught on for laypeople, even in Western countries. But the specific NPIs themselves are part of our lives now: masks, shields, PPE (personal protective equipment), and, initially, social distancing, a term that came from the World Health Organization but which it regretted and replaced with physical distancing, to emphasize you can still socialize. People are still divided between the two terms, but let’s push for physical distancing. Note that there is still a lack of consensus on the recommended distance between people — 1 meter, 1.5 meters, 2 meters, 3 feet, 6 feet? Just think of how far droplets and aerosols travel when someone coughs, sneezes (not the Maria Clara “ah-ching” but the macho “ahchooo!”), shouts, or sings (as in karaoke, where your score depends on the volume).

Legislators just had to get into the abbreviations game with some of the proposed bills for COVID-19 ayuda. I’m sure I missed some, but here are the ones I caught: Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises (CREATE), COVID-19 Unemployment Reduction Economic Stimulus (CURES) Act, Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD), and Barangay Emergency Employment Program (BEEP).

Beep, beep, let’s hope priority is given to our SMEs (small and medium enterprises).

There will be more Covidese developments in the months ahead as we grapple with this pandemic, but I just had to mention how we are seeing the resurrection of a term that was becoming obscure: mañanita, referring to birthday serenading. It has gotten at least three government officials into trouble because such activities are violations of quarantine rules: crowding and, less known for their risks of transmitting the virus, singing happy birthday, and blowing out the candles on the cake.

This Friday morning, June 12, let’s celebrate a different birthday. The Movement Against Tyranny has called for mañanitas, decentralized protests, with masks and physical distancing, in schools, churches, and freedom parks to oppose the anti-terrorism bill — no abbreviation there.

mtan@inquirer.com.ph