Word of the month: Hao shao

By Noel Galon de Leon

I honestly wanted to take a break from writing for the next few weeks. I wanted to step away for a while and pour my energy into more personal things, especially because my mother is currently visiting me at home. I thought this was the right moment to rest my mind, stay quiet, and simply be present. But some things refuse to stay unwritten. Some moments insist on becoming language. And tonight, while watching a Senate hearing, I found myself opening my notes again.

The timing was almost cinematic. Raffy Tulfo had the floor, responding to the presentation that Imee Marcos had just delivered regarding the alleged Charter Change initiative that many critics suspect is ultimately designed to extend the terms of incumbent government officials. Tulfo spoke calmly, but beneath that calmness was ridicule sharpened into performance. Then, in the middle of his remarks, he dropped a word that immediately caught everyone’s attention: hao shao.

Even Loren Legarda paused to ask him to explain what the word meant. Tulfo gladly did so, almost relishing the moment. It was one of those rare instances in Philippine politics where a slang term suddenly becomes more powerful than parliamentary language itself.

To be honest, I have never really liked Tulfo. And I dislike Imee Marcos even more. On Facebook and across social media, people often call her the “queen of fake news” in the Senate, and while online discourse can sometimes be exaggerated, I understand why that label sticks to her. Whenever I hear her speak in interviews, I cannot shake the feeling that every sentence sounds rehearsed yet strangely undercooked at the same time. There is something deeply performative about the way she presents herself in public—as if every statement is designed less to communicate ideas and more to provoke attention. I often find her shallow as a senator, someone who confuses spectacle with substance.

And yet, despite my dislike for Tulfo’s political style, I have to admit that tonight he dismantled Imee Marcos with a single slang word. He called her presentation hao shao. Frankly, she deserved it.

But what exactly does hao shao mean? Why did that one expression immediately resonate with so many Filipinos online? And why does it feel more precise than any formal political criticism?

The word “haosiao” — also spelled hao shao, hausiao, or hawsiao — is a slang expression deeply embedded in informal Filipino speech, especially in urban communities, youth culture, street conversations, and online discourse. It refers to someone who is fake, pretentious, trying too hard, socially performative, or projecting an image that does not match reality. It is often used against people who appear excessively “pa-cool,” “pa-sosyal,” or desperate to manufacture an identity for public approval.

In some contexts, the term can also describe objects: imitation products, class-A goods, or anything aesthetically polished but fundamentally inauthentic. Older usages of the word even carried implications of being overly flamboyant or “mababae,” especially toward men perceived as excessively soft, dramatic, or attention-seeking. But contemporary Filipino usage has largely shifted away from gendered meanings. Today, haosiao is less about femininity and more about performance itself—the performance of status, intelligence, authenticity, sophistication, or relevance.

That is why the word cuts so deeply. Haosiao is not just an insult. It is social criticism disguised as slang.

The term is believed to have roots in Hokkien, a Chinese language that has profoundly influenced Philippine languages and urban culture because of centuries of migration, trade, and Chinese-Filipino presence in places such as Binondo, Cebu City, and Iloilo City. Many Filipino words have Hokkien origins, particularly in commerce, food, and colloquial speech, and haosiao belongs to this long linguistic history of borrowing and transformation.

Some linguistic theories suggest that the original Hokkien expression referred to foolishness, clownish behavior, or something ridiculous. But once absorbed into Filipino street language, the word underwent a semantic shift. It evolved beyond mere silliness and became associated with artificiality, social climbing, and exaggerated self-performance. In many ways, this transformation reflects how Filipino culture localizes borrowed language: foreign words stop being foreign the moment Filipinos reshape them according to local anxieties, humor, and social realities.

Grammatically, haosiao usually functions as an adjective. A Filipino might say, “Ang haosiao ng dating niya,” meaning someone’s vibe feels forced or pretentious. It can also describe material things: “Haosiao ’yang bag niya,” implying the bag is fake or imitation. But because Filipino language is extraordinarily adaptive, the word also becomes verbalized in everyday speech. Expressions like “nagha-haosiao” or “mag-haosiao” transform the slang into an action—the act of pretending, posturing, or fabricating an image. This flexibility mirrors how Filipino grammar absorbs foreign vocabulary and naturalizes it through local syntax, much like “nagda-drive,” “magte-text,” or “nagfe-Facebook.”

The popularity of haosiao expanded significantly from the 1990s to the early 2000s, especially within urban Visayan communities, barkada culture, gay lingo, text messaging culture, and eventually social media. While it is difficult to pinpoint the exact first usage of the term—because slang survives primarily through oral transmission rather than formal documentation—it became especially widespread in the Visayas before circulating nationally through memes, internet humor, and everyday digital conversations.

What makes the word culturally powerful is that it perfectly captures a very Filipino discomfort with excessive self-performance. Filipino society places enormous value on concepts such as hiya, social harmony, reputation, and public image. Because of this, haosiao became an effective weapon against people perceived as overly performative, arrogant, fake, or obsessed with appearances. It is the language people use when they sense that someone is no longer being genuine but merely acting out a role for applause, power, or validation.

And perhaps that is why Tulfo’s insult landed so effectively in the Senate today.

Calling Imee Marcos haosiao was not merely calling her fake. It was accusing her entire political performance of being hollow theater. It implied that her presentation was less an act of governance and more an act of spectacle—carefully staged, emotionally manipulative, and disconnected from sincerity. In one slang expression, Tulfo reduced the performance to what many critics already suspect it to be: political cosplay masquerading as public service.

The existence of a word like haosiao reveals something important about Filipino language and identity. The term itself is hybrid: shaped by Hokkien influence, transformed through Tagalog and Cebuano usage, filtered through urban humor, and amplified by internet culture. It is no longer simply a Chinese-derived word. It has become fully Filipino—alive in the streets, in memes, in classrooms, in online arguments, and now even in the Senate.

More importantly, the word demonstrates how slang can function as cultural analysis. Filipino street language is often dismissed as unserious, but words like haosiao carry sophisticated observations about class anxiety, authenticity, social aspiration, and performative identity. Slang becomes a way for ordinary people to critique power without academic jargon. It condenses sociology into everyday speech.

So even if I do not particularly admire the Tulfos in politics, I agreed with him tonight when he called Imee Marcos haosiao. Some insults are crude. Some are lazy. But others feel painfully accurate.

And sometimes, a single slang word can expose more truth than an entire Senate hearing.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in the Division of Professional Education and at UP High School in Iloilo. He is also the Secretary of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts-National Committee on Literary Arts.