The ´colorum´ mentality

I WAS told that the Filipino slang, ¨colorum,¨ is a corrupted version of the Latin phrase ¨saecula saeculorum¨ that appears usually in the ending part of a liturgical prayer, ¨Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum, Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti, Deus. Per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.¨ (For ever and ever. Amen.)

It seems that when Masses were still said in Latin, most people just mumbled the Latin prayers without really knowing what they meant, much less, how they were grammatically constructed.

The whole phenomenon later became known as ¨colorum,¨ that obtained other nuances of meaning like poor imitation, a fake, and so on until it acquired its more recent and popular signification of anything that is illegal or unlicensed, as in a “colorum” jeepney.

But with controversies now popping up because of some hot-button and wedge issues like the RH bill and the Pajero bishops, I feel that the word has become relevant again to refer to the tendency of many of us to talk on issues without much grounding on study and research, and recourse to professionals and authorities.

We can talk and talk, write and write, give our views and opinions here and there, guided only by our own ideas of what is true, good, fair and relevant, without any due effort to seek absolute and universal standards.

We have become very subjective, and therefore prone to be conflictive, divisive and chaotic. We simply rely on our personal estimations of things, or guided only by tentative and shifty social and cultural norms.

We can call this our 'colorum' mentality that is abetted by the current cultural ethos where everyone seems to be completely free, accountable to almost no one except oneself, to express any opinion and view, even if that position is based only on bias, hearsay, gossip or rumor, or one's preferences and personal taste made absolute, if not pure malice.

There's so much shooting-from-the-hip comments, knee-jerk reactions, shallow and gratuitous claims and bluffs, obvious fawning and even unintended foot-in-mouth statements. They appear in opinion pages, in editorials, and they fester like cancer in talks shows on TV and radio, where we have a lot of blocktimers and paid hacks with clearly slanted agenda.

This is a strange development, since with the surge in our penchant, motives and capability for communication, it should stand to reason that we become more circumspect in our views, more grounded, more sensitive to the opinions of others, etc.

Of course, it is also understandable that given the what may be referred to as an epidemic of loose minds and tongues nowadays, we can expect a chaotic arena in our world of public opinion. But I think we should exert greater effort to put things in order, to make journalists and opinion-makers more accountable for their statements.

This is the great challenge we are facing today in the area of journalism and public opinion. This is not a call for censorship. This is not a matter of coming up with penalties for proven offenses. It's first of all a question of formation, of recognizing objective values and and universal standards that should guide us, our views, our words, etc.

Many do not yet realize, or they refuse to accept, that ultimately and constantly the guide and standard for us should be God, who is supposed to be the author of all creation, and therefore, of truth, justice and what is objectively good for all of us.

If ever there's any reference to God, it's simply formalistic, with no operative and functional role in our views. This is unfortunate, since the only way we can get at the truth and to express it with charity and fairness is when we have a personal, vital relation with God. Outside of that, we would be on our own, guided only by our own lights.

There is still that deeply embedded anomaly of treating religion as a strange element in one's life, not applying it consistently in all our concerns, affairs and activities.

This is precisely what the “colorum” mentality is all about. It's when we detach ourselves from the author of truth, charity and justice, when we end up dishing out, as it were, poor imitations of the real thing, and unfair, biased views, and bastardized versions of the truth.

This is where we simply generate intrigues, and make lies appear like truth, mixing them with some pieces of truth to make them sound credible. This is where the spin doctors are good at.