My Name is inside Me

Capunitan, Jotojot, Baho, Pecpec, Dimapakali, Babuyan, etc., these are just some of the native names we have in our country. Names that we often laugh at because of its unpleasant sound. Nowadays, some Filipinos have no respect on the names of there fellowmen, what matters to them most are the names that sound pleasant or names that are close to western names. So what is it then are you going to do if youre in a situation like this? This is the question being answered by the episode Pangit na Pangalan of Word of the Lourd series. While I was watching the said episode, there came a point where theres an aaahhh factor. I was astonished by the said episode because despite its less serious side in informing its viewers, it has presented facts that were based on research of the past. I learned something about the history of our surnames, how it was created, and where it was based. According to research, during the Spanish regime, Dr. Narciso Claveria, the Governor-General of 1849, published the Catalogo Alfabetico de Apellidos that contains surnames for Filipinos; according to him, when the Spaniards came to the Philippines, our ancestors have no surn ames so theres a confusion on the payment of taxes, on forced labor etc. The reason why I was astonished by the said episode was maybe because the topic being brought out, for me, was interesting for it has something to do with your past. Also, knowing a lot from your past matters to me for it explains the factors of who you are today. On the other hand, the other fact presented by the episode was that on 1915 the Bureau of Education released a list of names who were baptized, and these names were based on the names of religious feasts, saints, and old Greeks and Romans. Well, I agree, for many of the Filipinos today have names like De Jesus, Nino, Athena, Jose, etc., which were all based on religious patrons and/or Greeks or Romans. For me, its nice to have names like this because in some way, we are related to Gods and other religious symbols but we should always put in minds to never be ashamed of whatever surnames we have, for it represents us of who we are and it represents us as Filipinos. Changing your name would be, for me, the stupidest decision someone could ever make. Besides that it is legal here in our country, spending too much money just to change your name because you have done something wrong or you just wanted a more sophisticated name is just impractical. It only shows how you are embarrassed with the name given to you by your ancestors. For me, those who are ashamed of their names are considered as a disgrace to their family, and if you did something illegal changing your name would not solve that problem nor change those things that were changed back to the original state.

We should be responsible with our actions, and take all the consequences it may give because running away from our problems will not solve it so why prolong the agony. Changing your name doesnt change anything, it may have changed your identity as person but it doesnt change you as a new innocent person, your e still the person who did a criminal act thats why theres no point of changing your name just because you did something illegal. Its useless. We often laugh at those persons with weird names. Treated differently and being teased to death, those people with weird names became a laughing stock to some. See how rude we are by simply judging and teasing other people just because of their names. Even though we barely know them, we make fun of them. Sometimes, even though a person has a beautiful name, we judge them based on their actions. We tend to stereotype others based on the things that are related to their name, for example, Arroyo. We knew that during Arroyos presidency a lot of controversies, that were proven true, arouse regarding graft and corruptions. Now, it is stuck in minds of our fellow citizens that when we hear the name Arroyo the first thing that will come to our minds are not her contributions to the development of our country but the wrong acts the she did. This is the one thing that Ive learned from the episode Pangit na Pangalan of Word of the Lourd series. That it doesnt matter how unpleasant to the ears of the people your name is because no matter how beautiful your name sounds but you as a person carrying that name sucks and/or even worse than a wild beast then its worth having a weird name yet clean. Another thing that was pointed out from the episode is that it is in our hands on how can we deliver or carry our name in the public. We have the power to make a weird or unusual name beautiful because the beauty of a name does not lie on the struct ure itself but on the persons good deed and personality.