In defense of buki

By Joseph Batcagan

The world might have been flattened by the internet. But there’s still one word I keep hearing in local spaces: “buki gid”.

While black-box algorithms keep us isolated in loops of perpetual validation, it really makes me wonder why buki, that Hiligaynon word signifying class and taste, still survives.

Is it because class distinctions are still felt keenly here? Perhaps.

And, of course, because class is really unavoidable here, this notion finds its way unprompted into our tiny minds because of the environments we grew up in, efficiently drilling into our identities as they are still forming.

Jeproks. Jologs. Squammy. Jejemon. Gengeng. Depending on which generation you identify with, you might also have a variation in mind.

Do you notice the common thread in these words?

These are words coined from derision. They were meant to be read as, “I’m better than you”.

As with any hierarchy, buki is associated with people who are barely given permission to take space by their social betters. It’s class conflict shaped by digitization. The difference this time around is that cultural gatekeepers have been given the tools to classify class into neat folders in their devices.

But kabukian still exists. People called buki–regardless if they accept the identity or not–are proud of what they like. While modern design trends push the supposed importance of blank spaces, Pinoy culture often does the opposite; we fill the spaces with colors, accessories, or anything that screams. For better or worse, we are experts at maximalism.

Whenever I buy ahos and bumbay from our neighborhood wet market, the first thing that always heralds my arrival is the dulcet tones narrating the afternoon story for “Once There Was A Love” from Lola’s tiny radio.

As I’m riding the tricycle back home from the talipapa, our neighbor from two houses away sings whatever song of Air Supply she might have fancied at the moment to while away the afternoon doldrums.

Later on, the old titos and their sons arrive outside the tyangge from a backbreaking day of renovating a house; it would be lucky for them if that house they’re laboring on was just inside the barangay.

As they wait for dinner and get drunk on the unholy nectar of Red Horse and Tanduay, Tito Jun gets the idea of playing “Touch by Touch” from his budget Android smartphone. For a moment, the men egged each other to dance as Iyay from the tyangge, looking on bemused, just resigns at the pointlessness of shushing them and just letting the men have their momentary fun.

To me, being buki is being free to express. It’s being free to create joy from one’s reality with meagre resources. And probably the most important facet of being buki is this: it’s the unashamedness of inviting people to take part in that joy. And communal joy is probably the greatest shield we have against this cultural flattening.

“To be cringe is to be free,” as the popular internet saying goes these days.

So, to sum, kabukian matters. More than we might even realize.

So, what kind of buki are you?

Joseph Batcagan is a dilettante in the creative and systemic, drawn to the uneasy space where the two intersect. He collaborates with Kikik Kollektive as part of their writing team. You might occasionally spot him downtown buying tela at TayLay.

KIKIK KOLLEKTIVE is an Iloilo-based independent artists’ collective that creates interventions, collaborations, and community-engaged art projects, with an aspiration to uphold local distinction amid global homogeneity. Known for public artworks and relational programs that narrate stories of traditional public markets, children in the aftermath of calamities, land-based Visayan wisdom, and lesser-known Ilonggo freedom fighters, the collective was among the highlighted artist collectives at the 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art in 2024.