S1L38 – Petition for Change of Name, feat. Miss Joanna Pis-O from Barlig
There are times when I’m not so prepared coming to class but I’ve learned the trick of how to deal with that. Have a short lecture in mind, call on a student you’ve never called to recite before, because students who have never recited yet think longer and answer slower they help you kill time.
I know right away if any of my students comes from Mountain Province, especially around the capital town of Bontoc. Their surname comes with a hyphen. Always with a hyphen.
“What part of Bontoc are you from, Miss Joanna Pis-O?” I asked this girl wearing a thick green parka jacket with a huge “Have a nice day!” smiling face cloth patch on her right sleeve.
“Not Bontoc, sir. I’m from Barlig.” she sprung to her feet. She can talk so fast, she was done with her sentence before she could even get completely on her feet.
“Oh, Barlig? I know the Gut-omens from there,” I said.
“Not Barlig, sir. The Gut-omens are from Sabangan!” she said. I think she blinks with every syllable when she talks. I could be wrong but that’s what it looked like.
“What are you, the provincial civil registrar?” I said, amazed that she knew the correct roots of a family I had just randomly remembered from the late 70s.
“We know one another very well around those parts, sir. We have history.”
“I’m sure. Trade, intermarriages, things of that sort, right?”
“And the occasional friendly tribal wars, too, sir.” It’s confirmed, she DOES blink with every syllable! Did she say ‘friendly tribal war’?
“Miss Pis-O, please tell me what EXACTLY is a ‘friendly tribal war?’ Is that something like two groups of menfolk armed to the teeth and killing one another with tender loving care?” the class laughed, but I can see they’re really getting into this whole National Geographic thing I’ve got going with this girl from Barlig.
“No, sir. It’s really a myth that all we ever do in Mountain Province is cut off each others heads,” she said with an exaggerated pout.
“Oh, you mean you lop off OTHER parts, too?”
“No, sir, I meant we settle scores in other ways too. For example we have won over the Ifugaos in the rice terrace building department…”
“Really?? That…uh…that catches me by surprise a little bit. Are we talking of the same Ifugao here, you know like the Banawe Rice Terraces, Eighth wonder of the world postcard, downhill wooden trolley road race place—THAT Ifugao?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You beat THOSE guys in a friendly tribal war of rice terrace building?” I asked again, feeling rather unconvinced, “Does the Department of Tourism know about this?”
“Well, sir, they beat us in quantity, we beat them in quality,” the girl said, her voice shaking with pride.
“How exactly does quality and quantity figure in a rice terrace building tribal war, Miss Joanna?”
“Well, sir, the Ifugaos beat us because they have wider areas, more extensive and longer rice terraces. That’s quantity.”
“Right. And how exactly do you beat that in quality?”
“Sir Ifugao rice terraces are made of mud and earth. Our rice terraces in Barlig have all-stone riprapped walls! You should see them, sir, they’re absolutely beautiful!” the girl beamed.
I’m so happy that my students from the hinterlands of the interior Cordilleras can talk with such pride of place about their unspoiled hometown heritages. We Baguio City mice can’t put away the chainsaw and the cement mixer. If we ever have rice terraces in Baguio, they would have cordiflex plastic claddings for walls, LED striplights along the edges and colored dancing fountains on top. And we’d be growing doughnuts in them instead of rice.
“So there’s nothing you would change in your cultural heritage at all then, is there Miss Pis-O?” I asked, attempting to segue into my pathetically short lecture for the evening.
“Well, some of us could use a change of name, sir. For some reason, our parents love to come up with these horrible names for us when we were little children. Perhaps, they don’t realize that eventually we would also move into the cities and some of our cute hometown nicknames are just not going to cut it in modern society “
“Can you give some examples?”
“Well, sir I have cousins—”
“You mean HALF the town’s population, right?” They laugh. They get it.
“I have a male cousin whose name is Ba-kes, another one is named Satanas…”
“Seriously?? Ba-kes means monkey! And Satanas, who wants to be called that??” I said.
“But, sir, those names are CUTE in the barrio, but once you move into the city, it’s a different story. So maybe those demeaning names, we could use some change in them.”
“Which brings me to our subject matter tonight class, ‘Special Proceedings–Change of Names’ “ I said. Aha, success!
“You know class if your name causes you anxiety, anguish, embarrassment, or it makes you the object of public ridicule and contempt, or you simply don’t like your name, you can file a ‘Petition for Change of Name’ alleging those grounds and you have a fairly decent chance of the court allowing you to assume a new name.” I started.
“For example, I don’t know if Miss Joanna Pis-O here hates her name but even she can petition to change it if she wants—”
“Can you run a few by me, sir, and I’ll see if I can fall in love with one or two, but I like my first name sir…and I don’t like my surname to lose too much of its Mountain Province flavor…”
“Alright, we can keep your first name, and the surname flavor, as you put it,” I said, accepting the challenge “so you can petition to change your name from ‘Joanna Pis-O’ to, let’s say, ‘Joanna Cream-O” The whole class burst in laughter.
“What else have you got, sir” Joanna said, doubling the rate of her eyeblinking.
“And the beauty of it, class, is you can file as many times as you want until you’re happy. So the new ‘Joanna Cream-O’ can file a second petition to change her name again to ‘Joanna Stik-O”
“Of course, the court can deny your petition on certain grounds. Miss Kata Ngahan, give us two.”
“Sir, if the change of name is sought to evade accountability for some crime, and if it will prejudice some unwary third party, like a creditor,” Kata, said.
“Good. Miss Deema, give three more.”
“Sir if the change of name might affect the family relations or civil status of other persons by the confusion it might cause, as when you surreptitiously reuse the name of a dead sibling, or other close relatives,” Deema recited effortlessly.
“That’s one. I asked for three, Miss Deema.”
“ Yes, sir. The Hollywood clause.”
“I don’t recall reading any ‘Hollywood clause’ in the law, Miss Deema, would you care to expain?”
“Yes, sir. I cannot petition to change my name to Angelina Jolie. She’s too prominent a person whose name is actually a brand—something like a trademark which is legallly protected.”
She is right. And the last time she will be tonight, because there are no more grounds left and I’m about to force her to cough up one more.
“That’s good, Miss Deema, and give us the last one, please?” It was all I could do to keep from shouting “Gotcha!” I knew this smartaleck has her limits!
But then she opened her mouth.
“The ‘Never-Again-Clause’ sir.”
I had that look on my face that made the whole class look at me like they’re saying, “You didn’t know there was still ONE left, Professor?”
“Of course,” I said, “the ‘Never-Again-Clause’ which I will ALLOW your classmate Miss Deema, here to explain—and you all better listen closely because I’m NOT GOING TO REPEAT IT!”
“The court will permit you to change your name because you hate it,” Deema started to explain and I listened closely in case I HAD to repeat it, “but the court will not allow you to change it into a name OTHERS hate, am I correct sir?”
“Uh..YES! Yes, Miss Deema, you are correct there, the ‘Never-Again-Clause’ because..uh…you know, like..uh,” I had to think fast, “because some names we just don’t want to ever hear again. Never Again! Never Again!” thank God it finally came to me, “so you cannot petition to change your name to Adolf Hitler!”
The whole class sighed. They get it. “Thank you, Miss Deema, you may take your seat,” I felt a little sorry for Deema because I think I got more credit than she deserved.
“Alright, class, I’ll see you next meeting…class dismissed. Miss Deema, may I have a word with you for a minute?”
Deema was her old bubbly self again by the time we got to talking in the hallway as we walked out of the building.
“Miss Deema, it’s not beneath me to apologize to you for forcing you to squeeze water out of stone like that back there. But I want you to know, I take note of these things, you know, your ability to think on your feet,” I said.
“Thank you, sir! I was winging it,” Deema chuckled.
“I know, I know, and another thing—I’m also sorry I kind of stole your punchline there, giving out the name Adolf Hitler so dramatically. I’m sure you would have savored saying it yourself, so I’m sorry,” I said.
“Oh, no, no, no, sir—ooops!”
“It’s alright, I said, I’ll allow you to say ‘no, no, no’ this time, consider it my penalty for stealing your punchline.” I said.
“You stole nothing, Prof. I wasn’t going to say ‘Adolf Hitler’ it’s too long.
“Really? Well, what were you going to say?”
“Digong!”
About the Author
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”
About Images: Some of the images used in the articles are from the posts in Atty. Joel Rodriguez Dizon’s Facebook account, and/or Facebook groups and pages he manages or/and member of.