Everybody knows esmiringhoy

By Herman M. Lagon

For several days now, the internet has been trying to answer one of the great questions of our time: What in the world is esmiringhoy? Pinoys have survived typhoons, elections, Senate hearings, and family group chats. Then esmiringhoy came along, and suddenly everybody had time. Suddenly, everybody is a linguist. Everybody has a definition. And, naturally, everybody has a friend who needs to be tagged.

The trouble began on the Oct. 17 episode of Raffy Tulfo in Action. Evelyn was talking about serious marital problems involving her husband, Ronald. She recalled him saying that a doctor had forbidden him from drinking, getting stressed, and, well, doing esmiringhoy. Later, before they separated, she said she had even suggested one last esmiringhoy. Asked what she meant, Evelyn supplied the translation that launched a thousand memes: bembangan. Sexual intercourse — or coitus, if we must be clinical.

That should have settled the matter.

It did not. This is the Pinoy internet.

Within hours, esmiringhoy had escaped the interview and acquired a life of its own. Somebody called it “night exercise.” Another offered “closure” for people 45 and above. One commenter thought it sounded like a fruit, perhaps some distant relative of rambutan. Others dragged poor balinghoy into the discussion. There was gerger, jerjer, cuddling, and the triumphant announcement, “Bembangan out, Esmi in.” One amateur etymologist broke the word into esmi for misis, iring for cat, and hoy for calling somebody’s attention. By that logic, esmiringhoy could be a wife behaving like a cat on the roof demanding attention. I would not bring that definition before a dissertation panel.

Then came the memes. Someone announced an “Esmiringhoy Shield,” complete with magnetic fields, pressure measurements, and a 96% signal-passthrough claim. Another came up with EsmeriSinghot. Somebody apparently decided that Onyat deserved to enter the competition. At some point, esmiringhoy stopped needing a definition. It simply needed a comment section. It had become a verb, a romantic activity, a political joke, and, somehow, experimental physics.

There is, however, a lovely complication. Esmiringhoy is not some linguistic baby born on Oct. 17, 2026. While much of social media was asking, “Ano raw, beh?” Bisaya speakers had apparently met this creature long ago. In September 2017, E.S. Godin was already discussing the word in Estandardisasyon sa Binisaya, a repository of spelling and grammar conventions adopted by Bisaya Magasin. The question then was wonderfully different. The discussion was not about introducing a newly discovered word but about something more basic: how the darn thing should be spelled.

E or I? A reader favored esmiringhoy, comparing it with words such as estorya, estambay, and esmagol. Godin disagreed. Under the spelling rules he cited, i is generally used for native words, while e occurs in certain borrowed forms. Finding no evidence that the word had been borrowed from English or Spanish, Godin considered ismiringhoy a native or locally coined Binisaya word and argued that it should therefore begin with I.

That makes the 2026 excitement even funnier. The internet was busy welcoming esmiringhoy to civilization while a nine-year-old Bisaya language discussion was sitting quietly in the corner saying, more or less, “Hoy, dugay na na.” Social media did not invent the word. It discovered it late, made it famous, and then began explaining it with great confidence to people who may have been using it before some of the explainers had Facebook accounts.

Even its origin is not quite settled. Dr. Benjamin M. Mendillo Jr. of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino told PhilSTAR L!fe that esmiringhoy is Bisaya slang combining esmi, street slang for spouse, and iring, or cat. He also noted that the word is not in the standardized dictionary or KWF’s official register. The older Godin discussion gives us good reason not to treat any newly popular etymology as the last word on the matter.

But I suspect etymology is only half the reason this thing exploded. The other half is much simpler.

Sex.

Or bembang. Or gerger. Or jerjer. Or whatever your generation, barkada, language, hometown, and level of courage at the dinner table happen to call it.

We Filipinos can be wonderfully inventive when discussing sex, especially when trying very hard not to say “sex.” The activity itself needs little introduction. The vocabulary surrounding it apparently requires constant renovation. Give enough generations, regions, and barkadas enough time, and sex can accumulate more aliases than a wanted man.

That may be why esmiringhoy became instantly relatable. Some people laughed because they had never heard the word. Others laughed because they understood the situation immediately. Still others tagged a friend, which was probably less a contribution to linguistics than an accusation.

There is something very Filipino about being uncomfortable saying “sexual intercourse” while happily spending three days discussing it once somebody calls it esmiringhoy. Say “sexual intercourse” over lunch and somebody may suddenly become very interested in the sinigang. Say esmiringhoy, and an auntie, two cousins, four officemates, and somebody you have not seen since high school may appear in the comments.

Perhaps euphemisms make the subject easier to carry. They put a little curtain around something everybody already knows is behind it. One generation says bembang. Another says jerjer. One place has its own term. Another invents something else. The words change. The activity, it appears, has shown admirable continuity.

And somewhere in all this, it is worth remembering that Evelyn was talking about a painful marriage, not auditioning to become a national comedian. She need not become the joke. The fun is in what happened after she said the word. One ordinary expression left her mouth, landed on national television, and millions of Filipinos immediately recognized enough of the situation to run with it.

Evelyn, the internet heard you. Loud and clear.

And judging from the speed of the reactions, quite a number of us seemed remarkably familiar with the general subject matter. Perhaps not the same marriage, the same circumstances, or even the same vocabulary. But the idea of affection, desire, rejection, make-up sex, break-up sex, or that hopeful “one last time” before goodbye hardly required subtitles. Human beings have been negotiating that complicated territory long before Facebook gave us a laughing emoji.

Which is why I cannot remain too serious about ismiringhoy. No committee convened. No memorandum was issued. Nobody needed a notarized form, barangay clearance, or two valid IDs. One candid woman said the word on television, somebody asked what it meant, and the internet handled nationwide dissemination free of charge.

KWF can study it. Linguists can trace it. Bisaya speakers can continue the E-versus-I debate. Meme makers can do whatever meme makers do after midnight.

As for the rest of us, the viral reaction suggests that the activity itself never really needed explaining.

Call it bembang. Call it gerger. Call it esmiringhoy.

Apparently, we know.

Oh, we know.

***

Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed by or connected with.