Bardagulan
By Farah G. Decano
IN celebration of International Human Rights Day, the Lyceum Northwestern University College of Law through its Legal Education and Advocacy Discourse (LeadDTALKS) program recently invited the fearless Queen of Bardagulan herself, Atty. Rowena “Bing” Guanzon of the P3pwd partylist. Her topic was, “Human Rights, Online Bardagulan, atbp.”
She started her discussion with the responsibility of the State to protect, promote, and respect human rights. The feisty lawyer, however, observed that the fulfilment of these duties has been unstable in young democratic countries. She does not only lament about what seemed like a State-sponsored violence in the country but also the rampant land-grabbing incidents, the rising number of poor, corruption in government, and the creeping occupation by China. The former COMELEC Commissioner explained that if China successfully “invades” the Philippines, then Filipinos might lose their jobs and become slaves of the Asian giant. She emphasized that human rights are not only limited to political and civil rights but also to economic, social, and cultural rights.
Atty. Guanzon then connected the topic of human rights to the other subject matter of the talk. She admitted using “online bardagulan” as her way to reach the C, D, and E crowd. While she cited community organizing as one way to disseminate human rights information, she deemed it more effective to make use of social media to bolster her advocacy. Since people make use of the internet for entertainment, the outspoken lawyer thought of educating the public about their human rights by participating actively in online discussions of burning political and social issues.
A google search of the meaning of bardagulan yields “the trading of online hate speech or bullying other people online.” This is not what Atty. Guanzon engages in. Her online bardagulan is about debating controversial topics without much regard to rules on diplomacy, debate and logic. As a result, readers, observers, and lurkers on these exchanges among participants get educated at the same entertained. “Bardagulan is an art,” she claimed. “It employs the use of wit, sarcasm and irony.” She enjoys this method so much that she was later hailed as the Queen of Bardagulan or the Barda Queen.
The Barda Queen believes that online discussions that have no strict rules make debates less threatening and more accessible to Filipinos. “One must use the language that the people comprehend,” she said. She also claimed that the loss of the Kakampinks – the supporters of Leni Robredo during the 2022 presidential elections – was due to their failure to bring down high level controversies within the grasp of the masses.
Anyway, here are some of her quotes that strongly reverberated in the hearts and minds of her young and middle-aged listeners during this LNU event:
“You disrespect people whom you call ‘uneducated” when you don’t talk to them, or when you talk in a language they don’t understand.”
“Love your country, fight against injustice, serve the people, and sacrifice. True leaders must have the capacity for sacrifice.”
“As long as your spirit is alive, fight. As long as you have a tear in your eye, fight. As long as you have a pinch of angst in your heart, fight. Fight for your country. Because when you grow old, it will be lonely when you realize you have not done anything for your country.”
Atty. Guanzon encourages Filipinos to help disseminate information regarding justice and human rights by engaging in online bardagulan. When one must do so, she warned that it must be done only with the end that our country moves towards progress. Walang personalan. In the words of LNU College of Law Professor, Glenn Bauzon, “engage in bardagulan responsibly.”
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