Filipinos watching noontime shows are familiar with the expression grabe na ‘to, referring to the unbelievable feats a contestant has to complete to win the cash prize. Taglish-speaking collegialas say grabe ever so often that it is usually said when they can’t think of anything to say. In jest, it is also spoken in an exaggerated way to make fun of these collegialas, or the controversial women associated with this term—Kris Aquino and Ruffa Gutierrez.
Though grabe can accurately respond to the hardness of its homonym graba- which actually are hard cut rocks used in construction, this superlative effectively expresses the gravity of any situation. It could be very useful in one’s very active and exciting life, and quite confusing too, as this simple five-letter word could mean anything under the sun—and everything to this nameless student.
A student prepares for school early in the chilly morning, and the water heater is broken. Graaabe! One would be squealing it as if life depended on it, to distribute the body shock as the almost ice-cold water hits the skin. Then the student drives to school and can’t help but mutter grabe as she is welcomed by the frustration traffic. As soon as she enters the room, the teacher shouts and slams the door on her. She’s late. Embarrassed, she mouths it without any sound. Grabe. She then goes to her next class and the teacher hands out the midterm exam results. She gets a perfect score and in her elation, smilingly says it. Her classmates meantime verbalize their disbelief, admiration, and even envy. GRABE! She goes home and hurriedly runs to tell the good news to her significant other and twists her ankle in the process. She screams GRAABEE!!, as the pain shoots sharply in her lower extremity. She gets to her house eventually, and learns that her other half still has a meeting to attend to. Grabe. Disappointing. Her son wakes up from his nap and hears her, runs to her as usual kisses her and says ‘Mama, you’re beautiful. I miss you!’. Grabeee! How sweet! She smiles as if she just won the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant. Then they play tag and guess who runs out of breath? Grabe, she tiredly gasps. Panting like a dog, she realizes that she cannot even outrun nor out tire her terrible-two toddler, who can also be described as simply GRABE. Then the “good husband” comes home, kisses them both then whispers something naughty to the gasping mommy, who is by now gasping and giggling at the same time. Grabe! So funny! What’s that smell? GRAAAABEEEE!!! She panics when she saw the smoke in the kitchen! Yayks! The tinola has transformed into an inihaw na manok! GRABE KA! Her “sweetheart” angrily shouts at her. She then turns her heels and slams the bedroom door. He soon follows her and consoles her with a sweet Grabe ka naman, as he embraces her. He then goes to the kitchen and takes out canned sardines. Resignedly muttering, with a smile—hay grabe.
Anyway, what happens next to that student nobody knows, but this I do know. The semantics of grabe is like clay. Sure it is a general superlative, but the beauty of it lies in that anybody can take it as their own and mold it to comfortably suit what they need to express—be it the bliss of that first stick of cigarette after two weeks abstinence, or the thirst quenched by that ice-cold beer on a hot summer day, or hunger satiated by that delectable succulent steak, or the panic caused by the volume of backlogs that you have(in school and at home), or the appreciation for your recent enrolment in school after a long vacation, or the sleepless nights after a fight, or the unbelievable ecstasy when bodies and souls unite, or the breathless minutes that follow it, or the pains of the scars of the past that haunts you on cold quiet nights, or the contentment brought by a child’s embrace.
Ah grabe. It seems so easy to forget that it can also be used, more importantly, to articulate our gratitude to that super being that never tires of just being there for us—letting us live and breath, and express ourselves sensibly, even just through a single word that can tell the stories of our lives…GRABE.
