Old Bisayan fables, new lessons

OF COURSE, most of us are familiar with the fable, "The Monkey and the Turtle." Even Dr. Jose Rizal, our national hero, was known to have made comics illustrations of it for a young relative.

The story as we know it now has the Monkey always trying to trick the Turtle. But somehow the Turtle always ends up outwitting his supposedly wiser adversary.

The Turtle's victory over every imaginable adversary is a common theme of folklore all over the world. This is associated with the universal belief that mankind sympathizes with the oppressed and the disadvantaged.

However, it is not well known that the earliest version of the fable in the Philippines was recorded in 1668 by Father Francisco Ignacio Alcina, who spent much of his life serving the Leyte-Samar region. The Jesuit missionary immortalized our region, the original Islas de Bisayas, through his manuscripts.

The main difference between the fable that Alcina recorded and the current version is in the perspective. The early Bisayans had it that it was the Turtle who always tried to trick the Monkey, until the Monkey inflicted his righteous revenge. The new perspective is exactly opposite the old one.

The old Bisayan fable went this way:

The Turtle and the Monkey found by chance a sprout of banana plant they called sahaan. They fought over who would take the best part. In order to deceive the Monkey, the Turtle asked for the part that had the leaves. This part seemed best for the Monkey, who was allowed to keep it.

The Monkey, in turn, gave the Turtle the part with the root, which was what the Turtle actually wanted because it is what sprouts, grows and bears fruit. The Turtle gave signs of wanting the opposite so that the Monkey would let the Turtle get what he wanted, which was more profitable.

Eventually, the piece of stalk that the Turtle got sprouted, grew and bore fruits. Since he could not climb and get the fruit, the Turtle went to find the Monkey and asked him to climb and get the fruit. The Monkey did this gladly and, once seated above, he began to gather the bananas and ate them.

The Monkey threw all the peelings to the Turtle down below, a revenge for the first trick he received from the Turtle.

The original lesson intended by the fable was this: A man of intrigues and plots was like a Turtle, whose intestines have many twists and turns. Though small, the Turtle certainly knew a lot, since he was able to trick the Monkey, who was supposedly larger and wiser.

Anyway, the Monkey eventually got his revenge. And when somebody gave another fellow the worst part, the early Bisayans would say they treated him like a Turtle, and justly so.

Sadly, the world has turned upside down on us since 1668. In a world of Monkeys and Turtles, the old Monkeys have become the modern Turtles. And they seem proud and righteous to have become so. No wonder we have become a nation of born-losers.

Alcina also recorded the local fable about how bats got their name and the reason they would only go out at night. The tale went this way:

After their creation, all birds got together for each one to choose his food. So that they would not be taking each other's food, each was to choose according to his desire and taste.

When the big bat's turn came, he chose the fruit of a tree called tabigi, which is beautiful to the eye, as big as a medium melon, and, seen from a distance, very much like the big oranges from China.

The other birds made fun of the bat because his chosen food has nothing inside but a few seeds as large as eggs, although of different sizes to fill the shell. The seeds are very hard, bitter and tasteless. (The seeds were very good for curing diarrhea among humans, most especially the bloody type, although the birds did not seem to know this quality.)

From this incident, the bat was given the name kabug, which means dunce, or one who has little sense (i.e., bobo in Tagalog). The shame associated with the name was believed to have influenced the bats to go out only at night.

The early Bisayans had a saying that was very appropriate for many occasions. When one of them selected what pleases the eye without checking its quality - like a beautiful but foolish woman, or a handsome but stupid man, or a fruit of good color but rotten, etc. - they said of him, "Daw napili sin tabigi (Like a chooser of tabigi)."

Like the kabug, this person had chosen the tabigi fruit, good to look at but nothing else.

Now, modern Bisayans routinely elect tabigi types to public office. The chosen ones mostly looked nice at first, but many of them eventually proved to have little sense of duty.

Who then are the ultimate kabug? Of course, the ones who chose the tabigi.

However, the labels are no longer as clearly defined as they used to be. In our present political climate, many choosers and their chosen, by their seemingly habitual show of bad example, now qualify to be called tabigi and kabug at the same time.

No wonder our political life is in such a mess.