Page 134 - Tagalog for Beginners: An Introduction to Filipino, the National Language of the Philippines

ibabaw ng mesa ang libro.” (The book is on the table or The book is on top of
the table) (literally, On top marker table marker book).
In Tagalog/Filipino, the sentence means on, on top of, and above. Isn’t this
confusing? It is, but only for non-native speakers. As I explain at length in
Appendix 3 on the history of Tagalog/Filipino orthography, one characteristic of
the Tagalog/Filipino language is its “ambivalence.” Two letters are signified by
one character. Similarly, people say “No, thank you” when offered some food
even when they mean “Please ask me again.”

In this chapter, we use nasa ibabaw to mean above. Thus, the birds can be
flying sa ibabaw ng puno (above, not on top of, a tree).

This is further complicated by the practical question: How then do we say
that a cat, for example, is on top of the tree? The answer would be “nasa itaas.”
This means that the object “is high up something.”
Should you be confused, it might be better to simply use nasa when referring
to things that are on top of something, to use nasa itaas to refer to things that are
high up, and to use nasa ibabaw to refer to things that are above.

EXAMPLES : Nasa mesa ang aso. The dog is on the table.
Nasa itaas ng puno ang pusa. The cat is high up the tree.

Nasa ibabaw ng puno ang ibon. The bird is above the tree.

Mga Tala Sa Kultura

During the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines (1565–1898), plazas or town
centers were created. At the center of the town was a rectangular piece of land used
as a park and a place where people would gather for festivities. Around it were the
church, the largest, most imposing structure; government buildings such as the
office of the gobernadorcillio (“little” governor heading the town) and the police
station; schools or hospitals; and houses of privileged families. One’s economic
status was determined by the proximity of one’s house to the plaza. In
Tagalog/Filipino, the term nasa ilalim ng kampana ng simbahan, “under the bells
of the church,” meant that these people were Christians, and thus recognized the
authority of the church. The term implicated the “non-Christians” and considered
them as pagano (pagans), a derogatory term used for indigenous peoples who did

not convert to Christianity and thus retreated into the mountains.
According to cultural historian Bienvenido Lumbera in Philippine Literature: A
History and Anthology, 1997, this dichotomy between the Christian and the non-
Christian, the urbanized and the non-urbanized, created a wedge among the
Filipinos. This also resulted in a different culture for the taga-bayan (from the
town or urban center) and the taga-bukid (from the rural village). The former tried