Language matters

I ignored it twice. At a congressional hearing, the chair used “her,” referring to a male colleague. On the third time, I wondered if the chair was suggesting a gender identity issue. At this point, another congressman sought to clarify the pronoun. The chair then directed that the records use masculine pronouns and apologized for the mistake.

Since the session did not concern gender, it was, perhaps, unnecessary to correct pronoun use. Other languages give all nouns a gender. In Filipino, even personal pronouns are gender-neutral. “Siya” means “she/her” and “he/him.” ”Kanya” is “his/hers.” It is easy to lose proper masculine or feminine forms when translating Tagalog terms.

Matters of religion and law do demand greater language precision. “Amen, I say to you today you will be with me in paradise.” Was the good thief guaranteed outright or only eventual entry into heaven? Comma placement allows alternative interpretations. “I say to you today, you will be” stresses when the assurance was made. “I say to you, today you will be” promises immediate passage to paradise.

Since early Greek manuscripts often lacked punctuation, transcriptions presumably followed the authors’ own theological convictions, which their flocks followed. But competing versions fed into larger issues, such as the nature of purgatory and the impact of faith, grace, and good works in the attainment of salvation. These doctrinal disputes fueled bloody, sectarian wars in 16th- and 17th-century Europe.

Beyond pronouns and punctuation marks, even familiar words can mislead. Given the constitutional, 60-day limit on wars conducted without congressional approval, United States President Donald Trump turned to the thesaurus. Instead of “war,” he spoke of “hostilities,” “combat operations,” or “excursion.” When the deadline passed on May 1, Trump declared approval was unnecessary because a “ceasefire” had “terminated” the war. Troops in the Middle East were not engaged in war, only in “force protection,” or “anti-terrorism action.” But the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was an act of war, and the combatants were still firing at each other.

Some words come to acquire a technical meaning. The dictionary defines “imminent” as “ready to take place” or “happening soon.” When used to modify a “threat” requiring resources and possible violence to avert, it becomes a phrase for lawyers to parse. Political leaders in the US have fought for over two months on whether Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons is “imminent” enough to justify war.

Trump had claimed that the American aerial assault against Iran in September destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities. If so, the bombing of Iran in February 2026 would seem intended to prevent the resumption of Iran’s nuclear program rather than respond to an impending attack. This would arguably violate the United Nations Charter restrictions against preemptive military force. A war pursued as a choice rather than a last resort would also fail to meet what Pope Leo XIV explained as Catholic criteria for a just war.

Like the adjective “imminent,” the adverb “forthwith” indicates time, defining when an action should be taken. Our Constitution declares that, upon receipt of a verified impeachment complaint from the House, “trial by the Senate shall forthwith proceed.” While the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution does not set a specific timeline for the trial, it regarded refusal to act as a constitutional violation and warned against “undue delay.”

Former Senate President Vicente Sotto III appeared to favor the urgency conveyed by “forthwith.” For him, it meant “the following day.” But not literally; he also stressed the need to consider the administrative, logistics, and coordination requirements for the proper conduct of the trial. The Senate thus retains the discretion to decide the balance between careful preparation and “undue delay.”

Issues of wars and impeachment raise ideas and ideals that must be expressed and explained in language—in academic discussions, legal debates, and, not least, in public awareness campaigns in mainstream and social media. Words are weapons, marshaled to advance personal and institutional interests and deployed on different platforms for selective targeting of their audiences.

Those with the most skill in manipulating words and the greatest access to media channels clearly enjoy in these word wars distinct advantages denied to most Filipinos. Confronting critical national issues, most must deal with concepts expressed in unfamiliar foreign and Filipino languages that they struggle to understand and whose meaning may easily get lost in translation. How many Filipinos, apart, perhaps, from those schooled in the law, have ever encountered “forthwith?”

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Edilberto C. de Jesus is professor emeritus at the Asian Institute of Management.

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Business Matters is a project of the Makati Business Club (makatibusinessclub@mbc.com.ph).