BY DR. JOSE PALU-AY DACUDAO
(Tagalistas force curse word for money into Binisaya)
ISABELLA II of Spain (October 10, 1830 – died April 10, 1904, reigned from 1843 to 1868) was one of the most colorful figures of the Spanish Empire of the 19th century, which then included the Philippine Islands.
Practically every period of her life was surrounded by contentious and scandalous issues, which would certainly beat most modern scandals so beloved of modern mass media and internet blogs and websites.
Early years
Isabella was born in Madrid Spain, the eldest daughter of Ferdinand VII, king of Spain, and of his fourth wife, the Bourbon Maria Christina, who also happened to be his niece.
Upon the death of her father, Isabella was proclaimed Queen on September 29, 1833, at the age of three, with her mother as queen-regent.
As a consequence, the first Carlist war ensued, when Isabella’s uncle Carlos, her father’s brother, contested her right to the throne, invoking the old Salic law of the Salian Franks of 6th century Europe, which forbade the ascension of female progenies to the throne.
Clever Ferdinand VII, Isabella’s father, had in his lifetime induced the Spanish Parliament, the Cortes, to invalidate this law. Those who supported Carlos and his descendants’ right to kingship became known as Carlists, and in the ensuing decades, they fought several wars for their monarchial cause.
Teenage years
After surviving the war and several tumultuous years of reform that saw the Liberals and Progressives establish a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary government, dissolve the religious orders, and confiscate the property of the religious orders, the pro-Isabella faction of the Army led by Generals Leopoldo O’Donnell and Ramon Narvaez managed in 1843 to induce the formation of a Cabinet they controlled, presided by Joaquin Lopez, which straightaway instigated the Cortes to declare Isabella official Queen of Spain at the age of 13.
On October 10, 1846 the Moderados forced Isabella to marry, at 16, her cousin, Prince Fernando Francisco de Asis de Bourbon-Cadige (1822–1902), who also happened to be a homosexual.
Adult years
One could say that Isabella, during her childhood and teenage years, was merely a hapless puppet, dangling on the strings pulled by the real Queen-makers. As this hads often occurred in the histories of monarchies, one could certainly absolve poor Isabella of any faults.
Many monarchs have ascended above such vulgar issues and have matured to become great leaders in their more mature years. Isabella did not.
Isabella’s reign was marked by byzantine intrigues, secret deals, barrack conspiracies, and military pronunciamientos as political parties battled it out, no holds barred. Moderados ruled from 1846 to 1854, Progressives from 1854 to 1856, and Unión Liberals from 1856 to 1863.
Thereafter, Moderados and Unión Liberals kept out the Progressives by fair means or foul, fostering such a hostile atmosphere that things erupted into the ‘glorious’ revolution of 1868.
Contributing to all the intrigue and hostility was the Queen herself. Isabella would unscrupulously favor her favorite generals, statesmen, and corrupt and money-guzzling sycophants, even at the cost of ruining the reputation of her court.
Isabella was forced out of her throne and out of Spain into exile in France (the Bourbons, Isabella’s clan, are an old French aristocratic family) by the 1868 revolt led by General Juan Prim.
When Spain started stabilizing, Isabella’s corrupt and unscrupulous reputation rubbed off on her own son Alfonso XII. Although many politicians wanted him to be King, the Cortes, suspicious that Isabella would unduly influence her son from her exile in France, chose instead a somewhat neutral Italian prince, Amadeo of Savoy, who reigned as Amadeo I (1870-1872).
It was not until a coup de etat in 1875 that Alfonso XII (November 28, 1857 – November 25, 1885, reigned from 1875 to 1885) ascended the throne as king of Spain.
You might ask: Why is such an inept monarch as Isabella II being featured in an essay on languages?
Well, Isabella’s scandals did not stop at her court intrigues. She was also widely regarded all over the Spanish Empire as a nymphomaniac. Of her 12 offspring, it was widely rumored that few or none of them sprang from her legal husband, a known homosexual.
Alfonso XII himself, later King of Spain, was said to have been sired by Enrique Puig, captain of the Royal Guard, or General Francisco Serrano.
Monarchs usually get to have their features minted in the coins of their kingdom, and Isabella was no exception. Her face was carved on the coins circulating in the Philippine Islands during her reign.
Thus it happened that the Spaniards in Manila would often refer to a coin marked by Isabella’s face as “Perra”. Ignorant Tagalogs listened to their Spanish superiors, and also imitated that word, as “pera”. What does it mean?
You guessed it. “Perra” means a female dog, also called a bitch, which as everyone knows would copulate with any male dog during the period of her heat.
Many Spaniards then would contemptuously refer to their Queen as the “bitch”, and would refer to coins marked by her face also as bitches.
Visayans usually refer to money as “kwarta”, derived from the Latin “quartus” (meaning one-quarter); and even today, Americans call the coin representing ¼ of a dollar a quarter. Tagalogs, on the hand, have adopted “pera” into the Tagalog language.
Silly pathetic Visayans, with an overdose of colonial mentality for Manila and the Tagalog language, can nowadays be heard using this same bitchy “pera” word instead of “kwarta.”
The Tagalista policies of the Manila-based government and Manila-based Corporations, including showbiz companies, are to blame for the spread of this cuss word into Visayan languages, through their enforcement of Tagalog into our educational institutions, government communications, and the mass media.
The only sure way of countering the ill effects of such policies is to teach our traditional languages, such as Hiligaynon and Kinaray-a in our schools, replacing Tagalog, while maintaining the effective teaching of English as a neutral leveling tongue for all Philippine citizens and as our key in communicating in the international world of commerce and science.
Next time you hear a brainwashed Visayan pathetically masquerading as an Alog, tell you, “I will give you “pera”, tell him in turn, “What, are you trying to give me, a BITCH?”
[However, if possible, make sure he knows the reasons for your objection, that it is only part of a greater problem, which is the unfair imposition of Tagalog on our culture.] (For comments and suggestions please email to mabuhibisaya2017@gmail.com)/PN
