There was this Filipino kindergarten teacher and she was teaching her class how to do the hokey-pokey. She started off by saying, ‘You put your right feet in, you put your right feet out, you put your right feet in . . . . .’ Suddenly, one of the children said, ‘Teacher, you have to say ‘foot.’ So the teacher said, ‘You ‘foot’ your right feet in, you ‘foot’ your right feet out . . . . .’
Yes, just like that one, many Filipinos are being joked around because of mispronouncing the letter F to a P and vice versa, as well as the letters V and B – foot or feet to poot or peet, put to fut, victory to bictory, possible to fossible, half to halp, beautiful to veautipul, company to comfany, and worse, part to fart and many others. Same problem goes to words with ‘th’ like three and thought, which sadly, we still hear many say tree and tot. We call it ‘the F froblem’ or ‘the V provlem’. Luckily, I am not one of them.
There was this one time in Octover, err, October, a week before the UN Day celebration at Jeff’s school where he represented Greece, I went out to look for a Greece flag. Since schools here in Quezon City are celebrating the same special event, I went from store to store disappointed. They were out of flags! Even a National Bookstore branch near our place ran out of stock. Since I was in a mall that particular day, I made one desperate move in hopes of finding a flag. I went inside Home Works, a store where you buy stuff for your house – furniture, appliances, lighting fixtures, bathtubs, tools and other supplies. They are also selling notebooks, calculators, pens and stuffs like that so I tried. As I entered, I immediately looked for a sales staff to ask if they sell flags. I saw this lady and asked, ‘Miss, meron ba kayong tindang flags?’ (Miss, do you sell flags?)

She politely replied, ‘Meron po. Dito po tayo, ma’am’ (Yes, we do. It’s over here, ma’am).
Full of hope, I followed her as she happily led me to a glass display cabinet and pointed to the things inside it. ‘Ito po.’ (Here they are).
My smile of hope turned to surprise as my jaw dropped 6 feet below sea level. She had just led me to a cabinet full of PLUGS – electrical plugs! All the while, she thought I was looking for plugs when I clearly said flags.

I left the store disappointed for not being able to buy what Jeff needed for the competition, but at the same time trying not to laugh at what just happened. Oh, some feofle! Why are they like that? Well, at least, I found a ‘real’ flag days before the program itself.
Btw, it’s oppicial. JC won the title of the Pirst Finoy Sole Surbibor

image from: Real Skeptic for the plug, Angel Tintin for the Survivor Philippines logo and previous post for the Greece flag