I have always wondered about the equivalent of the Cebuano word kaikog in other Philippine languages or in English. With the Le Cirque incident I am now almost sure that the nearest equivalent is the Spanish delicadeza.
Kaikog or delicadeza has many facets. Lawyer Angie Umbac defines delicadeza as "knowing you are right but tempering your actions to consider the sensibilities of others. It is a form of diplomacy, of good manners, of respect for other and knowing your place in the universe." (see Philippine Daily Inquirer)
My family lives in a mixed neighborhood. The better off families line the side of the street of what passes for a subdivision. Our home is at the back of one of these well-off families. And even beyond our house are our poor neighbors who live on rented lots although they are simply lumped most of the time by census takers into the category of squatters. Our poor neighbors and us have to pass through an undefined right of way. Undefined meaning the right of way can be fenced off anytime the rich owner decides to use the vacant lot cutting us off from the subdivision street that connects us to the main road.
Some households along the subdivision street simply wash their cars on the side of the narrow street making the path muddy for us who have to pass on foot. One can call them "walay kaikog". Or as my Spanish-speaking grandpa would say "falta delicadeza". Perhaps as subdivision residents they may have the right to use the street the way they wanted. But they have no kaikog for us poorer residents whose slippers, shoes or bare feet get stuck in the mud as a result of their washing their cars on the street.
Our community has no waste water drainage system. (Doesn't that sound familiar for all places in our poor country?) So the people on the subdivision and the poor neighborhood just make use of the law of physics which says that water seek its own level. Overtime, drainage canals just sprung up here and there: on the subdivision street, on the informal right of ways, along the concrete fences. But mostly people make sure the water do not run through or stay in their properties. I can understand the situation of the poor families. With barely a space for their homes to stand on, they don't have a place for their waste water. But I am frustrated when the families with big lots just bore holes through their concrete fences and allow their drainage to flow into other people's lot.
I made sure from the start of our stay in the neighborhood that our waste water stays within our lot by digging a drainage tank. Environmentally speaking, this is not an excellent choice. But that is a subject matter for another day.
The simple reason is that I always believe in kaikog towards my neighbors.
Ooops! I am violating another aspect of delicadeza as defined by Shirley Lua (see again the PDI). She says delicadeza or kaikog is "an attitude of modesty . . ."
