Yo Flip Boy!

 

I had a hard time with this entry. “What is the word that I wouldn’t want to be associated with,” I asked my brain. My brain maintained its silence for a long time. Then, eureka!

I don’t want to be called FLIP. The Davao Flip.

I was born in Davao City. It is the largest city in the Philippines in terms of land area. It is also the best city in Mindanao. Asiaweek has placed Davao City into the 20 most livable cities in Asia. The city has also been dubbed as the 10^th Asian City of the Future. Davao City has an image eons away from the image of war-torn provinces in Mindanao.

Davao City also has the most diverse dialect in the country, a dialect with no name but is used. To simplify things, the dialect is based on Bisaya but it has incorporated a great number of words from Tagalog and English and with a dash of words from the different dialects of the country. And in this Davaoeño dialect that I learned the word FLIP. On what I think, this word and its meaning originated on the English phrase “flipped your mind”, therefore giving the word flip a meaning of crazy beyond repair.

I don’t want to be called FLIP. The American Flip.

The United States of America is a stable country. It has the largest economy in the world, having an almost yearly GDP of approximately $13 Trillion. Because of its strong economy, there is no denying that people from different walks of life, from different countries, come to the Land of the Free to work or migrate and live under the Star-Spangled Banner. This country has become a boiling pot of different races, different cultures, and different languages. And for every color in that country, there is a name that will forever define that person’s heritage.

The Philippines is the ranked 3^rd on the most number of migrant-sending countries, with almost 90,000 Filipinos migrating, legally and illegally, to the USA yearly. Even with this great number, we are also susceptible to racial discrimination. Americans call Filipinos as FLIPs. At first glance, this word may be harmless; many people think that it is just a shorter way of saying Filipino by removing letters (F I L I P I N O). But the truth is that this term is an acronym. It stands for Fucking Little Island People.

I don’t want to be called FLIP. The Last Flip.

The bottom-line is: I don’t want to be called FLIP. The word’s meanings have negative effects on me. It is not that I don’t want to be associated with it; I just don’t want people to use the word on me.