People tend to get too specific about the “right” language that should be used to teach and represent cultural ideas: that a certain word isn’t “Filipino,” or that it was borrowed from another language, or that one Filipino language can’t encompass all Filipino thought… as if the word W-A-T-E-R can quench my thirst. As if we can’t explain the principle of kapwa without having to use the word “Kapwa.” As if, just because a word doesn’t exist in another Filipino language, it isn’t a useful term to access human experience. As if I can’t just say things and not mean them.

Words point to things, they are not the things. If the intention is true, if the purpose is genuine, what else are we talking about?