>War of Testicles (Gyera ng mga Bayag)

>The scenario: In a typical beer house, an angst-filled man, Red Horse Beer in his hand, shouts at a fellow customer accusing him of eyeing him suspiciously (commonly known in the Land of Juan as “nangungursonada”). In return, the accused pulled out his balisong and “made a faucet” on the accuser’s side, killing him instantly. The accused was beaten to death by the other customers while the manager phoned the police. As the commotion goes, the country’s classic entertainment was being shown on the beer house’s television – the sensationalized news about two freaks in the helm of power clad in a suit battling out their ideologies in the arena called Philippine Politics.

The scenario, though obviously a product of the author’s crazy imagination, is a common reality in this country. Typical gangsters and war freak fraternity members are always hungry for rumble against their opponent group. A guy will tend to overreact to the point of instigating a fight whenever someone maliciously eyes his girlfriend wearing a pair of micro shorts. Looks, in this country, could be deadly.

Admit it. We Filipinos (I mean Filipinos, men with testicles) have that cultural identity and natural tendency of being too proud, boastful, and a bit of being a war freak in protecting and defending our self-interest. I do not know how to explain it in a sociological and psychological context but it is like a measure of who one is whenever one shows his angst-driven personality. It is like exposing to the whole mankind that you are a “someone” who can defend your beliefs, ideologies, interests and ego from anyone who would dare to attack it.

In the Filipino kanto parlance, those who are “may bayag” are considered as strong, machismo, and who will fight until the end to defend himself. The balls or the testicles, biologically and figuratively, are the measurement of being a vir, a man. Sad to say, most of the Filipinos tend to use their bayag more than they use the flesh made of neurons in between their two ears. The bayag is the new brain, or their brains have transferred to their balls. Well, whichever is which, that’s the same thing. Welcome to the reality, where war is waged by each men’s testicles

By using testicles instead of brains, one inclines to act irrationally. One follows his irrational instinct unnecessarily just to defend himself. There is no space for settling things down in a peaceful manner. There is no place for understanding whatever is misunderstood and whenever there is a clash of each other’s philosophies. 

In my opinion, I think that the reasons why Juan Republic cannot – or worse, will never – achieve her centuries-old dream of peace, prosperity, and unity is because of men with testicles. There are always clashes of egocentric ideologies protecting each other’s interests and not meeting in the place of commonalities, to improve and cultivate those common things for the rebuilding of our bayag-torn country. 

Almost a century ago, during the period when the Filipinos are just starting to use their courageous testicles to fight the invaders, a certain Austrian in the person of Ludwig Wittgenstein used his balls in a different way by creating a philosophy on explaining why there are miscommunications and misunderstandings. These two things, as we know, can lead to serious conflicts and in the Philippine setting, fatal outcome.

In that philosophy, aptly called as the philosophy of private language, he treated language too simplistically. His approach is the way we should use our language. He told that we are all using a logically private language. Private language means a language, which no one could in principle, understand. He stated that private sensations are the root of our knowledge and they create a private language. With that private language, when using it, we are then playing our language game. That game, just like any other games, follows a rule which is not applicable to other game, just like the rules of a basketball is different from volleyball. Since each and every one of us is playing our own language game and we all have different mindsets, there will be misunderstanding when two individual simultaneously play their own different game. 

But how can we achieve understanding if we are playing our own game? Wittgenstein explained that, though different, there are also similarities in every private language. He called it Family Resemblances. That similarity makes the possibility of communication and understanding.

We are all familiar of the seemingly unending political and social turmoil in our country. Each and every one of us is playing our own respective game. No one wants to listen on the other’s explanation and grievances. No one wants to understand in order to be understood. We are all being pulled down by the weight of our own testicles.

More so, some items are being sensationalized by the media and the society. Because of misunderstanding, small things are misinterpreted and are becoming overly (in)significant. Thus, creating another form of miscommunication and misunderstanding which is often too far from truth and reality. With this, it becomes an endless cycle.

Men will always be men and men will always have their testicles and balls will always be the expression of courage. Why not be courageous in a different way? Why not use the testicle-driven courage to create a change for a better future of society? That will save men from being dubbed as Utak Bayag. That is man’s real measure.