The Emergence of 'Po' in Contemporary Chabacano

When I was in college, I had a very funny and embarrassing linguistic experience. My friends and I were taking leave of my friend's parents one by one (after having lunch at their house) when I said the weirdest thing. Anda ya po kame. I was glad everyone else had left when I said it because I probably would not have been able to explain myself. In 2005, it was just plain weird for people to use po in Chabacano.

Today, I am reading a lot of Facebook posts where people are using po when speaking Chabacano. At the mall where you can hear conversations between store clerks and customers, the usage of po in Chabacano is very pronounced. At a Jollibee restaurant along the west coast of the city, customers are greeted with buenas dias po. Suddenly, after more than ten years, what I said in 2005 does not sound so weird anymore.

Of course, not everybody does it. I suppose people whose first language isn't Chabacano would be more prone to using po when speaking Chabacano and inevitably influence people whose first language is Chabacano. In my experience, those who do it would insert a po in their Chabacano when asking very short questions that require very short answers such as cosa color po (which color do you prefer).

I am uncertain about it, but I have not yet encountered anybody using po in every single sentence (in the same manner that it is used in the Tagalog spoken in Manila).

Here is a text message conversation I recently had wherein the person I was texting with constantly used po in her Chabacano.

When I asked a high school teacher of mine (who comes from a rural part of Zamboanga city) what the equivalent of po is in our culture, she said that there are no words to express this word in Chabacano. Rather, we use intonation to show a degree of respect towards the person to whom we are speaking to.

Aside from words that show courteousness such as favor and uste, much like in other languages, we use a unique intonation in Chabacano to color our speech with respect.

Po is a particle used mainly in the Tagalog spoken in areas where it is the dominant language as a form of respect.

Note: As can be seen from the url of this article, this was written in 2019. However, the photo above was taken in 2023 at the airport of Zamboanga by my best friend. I'm unsure when the sign was put up, though.