The importance of a name

I remember one lazy afternoon while studying in Coffee Bean, my friend suddenly remembered he had to make a testimonial for an upcoming election. Those were the longest five short sentences of my life. It took us 2 hours of deciding on diction, punctuation, construction and length. All we wanted to say was Vote for our friend, but we just had to think long and hard before we said it in a different way.

I asked him, why not put in a quote, or a funny joke, or just be terse. We were, after all, studying, and two hours of sidework for a 5-sentence testimonial spelled wasted time in all caps.

I can't, my name is on the line, he said.

Name. The same was the gist in Celeste's (Mylene Dizon) short scene with Ploning (JudyAnne Santos) in the movie "Ploning" where the former contemplated the secret to immortality. She said it could be found in a name shared with the people she loves. And it can't be in the common form. Manong guard, manong driver, and ate fishball, these are all hollow and connotes dispensability. If you do want to be remembered, if you do want to live forever, you invest in a name. Look at Bush, Marcos, and GMA. We don't simply call them presidents. We use their names that they have, for good or bad, invested heavily on.

The same goes for my friend. He isn't just another officer. He has a mark to take care of, and that mark is carried on by his name.

And the same goes for all of us. We have to protect the names we build for ourselves, lest the world or even just the people we care for, forget about us.