THE 'SWAK' CULTURE

Queuing to pay my groceries yesterday I spotted this consumer box piled at the conspicuous place at the grocery store, it caught up my attention and took a picture of it;

Who knows this emerging culture will save the planet Earth!

My reckless thoughts fired-up again, thinking that least Filipinos realized it we already have been answering the call of many environmentalists to help save this prettiest of planets – the EARTH.

In fact, Filipinos have at a snail's pace been embedding a folkway into its cultural system to address this concern. How? The SWAK folkway.

I have seen the TV ad of Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera aired on RPN-9 on saving the planet Earth with a clear message to have only what we need.

Simply translated to live simply, do away with so many ‘butingtings’, resist buying decorations from China, na wala namang kwenta ang ending basura, clutters we actually do not need, and encourage a lifestyle that buys only what is needed.

SWAK, other than the photo’s definition, can also be translated as ‘no more no less’ or in Tagalog ‘walang labis, walang kulang’ or ‘eksakto lang’, this lead me to mull over this…. That if everybody in our society join in to integrate this folkway into our cultural system, then our own little way will really go a long way. Who knows SWAK culture might save the planet.