By Tom Seyer

J ournalist cum community leader Bobby Mercado-Reyes (AKA Lolo Bobby Reyes) is the grandson-in-law of Isabelo “Don Belong” de los Reyes. Don Belong is the recognized father of Filipino folklore. If Don Belong were alive, he would have been proud of Lolo Bobby’s and his fellow writers’ continued push to document, and even to create more, Filipino folklores in the United States.

Folklore consists of “legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called folkloristics.” To read more about the topic, please click on this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folklore

If one Googles for “Snow Whitewash,” there are now “about 223,000 results.” And Lolo Bobby’s article about Loida Nicolas-Lewis being the Filipino “Snow White(wash)” ranks third. To read the article, please just click on this link, How Loida Lewis Got Dubbed “Snow White(wash)” and then “CinderLoida” in Ongoing NaFFAA Soap Opera

The NaFFAA is the acronym of the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations, which has Ms. Loida Lewis as its national chairperson emeritus.

If you Google for “Filipino Seven Dwarfs,” you will find as Results four and five a couple of articles written by Lolo Bobby, who called then Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and some of her Cabinet members, seven members of Senate Electoral Tribunal as the dwarfs and/or moral midgets. Of course, the seven colleagues of Ms. Lewis in the NaFFAA are her “Seven Dwarfs.”

Is the Philippine Senate Now a Zoo-biri?

Are Overseas Filipinos Building Monuments Dedicated to Gloria Arroyo, Et Al?

If one Googles for “Filipino Midgets”, Lolo Bobby’s article about the  “moral midgets,” as led by Gloria Arroyo, ranks No. 6, out of about 578,000 results. Here’s the article:

Moral Midgets and Delirious Dwarfs Continue to Rule the Philippines

H owever, if you Google for “Filipino moral midgets,” Lolo Bobby’s article ranks first and another MabuhayRadio article ranks second out of about 40,500 results:

Moral Midgets and Delirious Dwarfs Continue to Rule the Philippines is the No. 1 result.

Greg Macabenta will live forever in Google and in the collective memories of Filipino Americans as the “Lagareng Hapon.” If one Googles for the said term, the MabuhayRadio’s articles descriptive of Mr. Macabenta as the “Lagareng Hapon” land in the top-three and No. 14 results.

Toronto, Ontario, Canada-based Journalist Romeo P. Marquez immortalized the NaFFAA’s Disneyland-like characters in this video, Romy Marquez's Video about the NaFFAA's Snow White(wash) and the Seven Dwarfs

Lolo Bobby and his fellow writers in the MabuhayRadio have come up with “folkloristic” terms such as “Zoo-biri” (as euphemism for the Philippine Senate’s treatment of the Pimentel-Zubiri electoral case), “Cinderloida” (another moniker for Loida Nicolas-Lewis), “Dietzcovery” (for the online discoveries by or about Lorna Dietz), “Filipino Incredible Bulk” (a moniker for Mike Arroyo) and other colorful names and nicknames. He has also coined such “memorable” terms like “Dogmestic violence” (1988), “YIMBY,” which is the antonym of the NIMBY (1997), “NaFFAA-ka sakit, Kuya Eddie” (2000) and other acronyms. The said terms and acronyms became topics in writing about Filipino community news.

To read articles about the acronyms cooked up by Lolo Bobby, please click on these hyperlinks:

Lolo Bobby's Famous and Infamous Acronyms

Acrimonious Acronyms Display Filipino-American Wit and Humor

Perhaps future generations of Overseas Filipinos, especially Americans of Filipino descent, if not history, will eventually record or recognize Lolo Bobby and some of his fellow MabuhayRadio writers as the “fathers of Filipino folklore in North America.” At least they have enriched the language of the Filipino communities in the United States and Canada. # # #