They say that the Philippines is one of the world’s happiest nations.
From the pun-tastic signage put up by the everyday Pinoy to the comics drawn by no less than our national hero, evidence shows that our country loves to laugh. Even tragedy is fodder for a gag: Where else will you find flood photos turned into tourism ads? Swimming (and sarcasm)—it’s more fun in the Philippines!
Tonet Jadaone and Chinggay Nuque, film graduates from the University of the Philippines Diliman, discovered they could tap into the Filipino penchant for wit and kulit. In 2009, Jadaone thought of creating a planner to rival the overpriced ones from a certain coffee shop. Soon, the pair found that there was a market for quirky planners and books that make ingenious use of Filipino pop culture.
Since then, their brainchild Witty Will Save the World Co. has been releasing new products every year. The “Akala mo lang wala nang slumbook, pero meron, meron, meron!” Notebook/Slumbook, a notebook filled with questions for the owner’s friends to answer, was launched in 2010 and re-launched the following year due to popular demand. In 2011, the “Relaks, puso lang yan, malayo sa bituka” planner was put on the market, with love and heartbreak as its theme.
Though neither of them have a background in business, they have been able to create well-received products for years now—but how? Spinning laughs into substance takes much more than just wit. For those who work with humor, what makes it all work?
Like many things about them, it’s a funny story.
Turning the pages
When Jadaone came up with the idea of creating The “I-was-supposed-to-get-that-coffeehouse-planner-but-I-got-fat/broke-on-the-10th-frappe” Planner 2010, Nuque was the only one of her friends to reply to her text about it. “Suwerte lang ako, naki-ride lang ako (I was lucky, I just followed her),” says Nuque.
Called “The Anti-Coffeehouse Planner” for short, it was filled with references to local pop-culture (an entry on June 7 reads, “Happy birthday, Papa Piolo”) and humorous, honest notes in colloquial Filipino. Their success was almost accidental. They began with roughly 500 copies, hoping to sell to friends. Thanks to word of mouth, the orders came in and they had to keep reprinting. After reproducing a total of 3500 copies of the first planner, it was clear they had stumbled onto something big.
At present, Nuque takes care of the management side of the business while Jadaone is in charge of the creative aspect. Karl Castro, who works as the art director of ABS-CBN Publishing’s lifestyle publication Vault Magazine, has been handling the art for their products since 2010.
Like anything hot, expansion is in the works. “We have to be bigger starting this year. We should have products all year round,” says Nuque in a mix of English and Filipino.
Soon, they will release a wedding guest book, which they thought up after hearing that many couples used their slumbook as wedding guest books. “Bonus: May kalakip na pag-ibig na wagas (Bonus: Comes with true love)!!!” the product advertises.
From the company’s inception in 2009, Witty Will Save the World Co. has made a mark by giving people what they didn’t even know they wanted.
The program: Get wit
The 2013 planner asks the owner to identify their personality: “Pang-bida? Pang-other woman? Pang-pinag-aagawan ng two women kahit walang abs? (Protagonist? Mistress? One being fought over by two women even if you don’t have abs?)”
Filipino media heavily inspires Witty Will Save the World’s products, their pages peppered with references to love teams and gay lingo. They describe it as a kind of “educated masa humor,” the level of which is more Bob Ong than Eat Bulaga.
“Masa are those who watch Wenn Deramas’ films, like Sisterakas,” Jadaone explains. In the Philippines, it is understood that humor is socially stratified. Slapstick humor, which thrives in the local noontime shows, is most associated with people from lower social classes.
According to Ariel Villasanta, a TV5 comedian and former GMA television personality, “masa humor” is over-reactive and lowbrow, such as the slapstick antics from the television show Tito, Vic and Joey. Filipino comedians tend to overact, screaming and stressing the punch line.
In contrast, a more sophisticated humor is associated with people who are class C and up. “[These are] the people who use Twitter and Instagram,” notes Jadaone. “They’re more educated, probably because they have more access [to various resources],” adds Nuque.
Witty Will Save the World Co. is geared towards this market in particular. “These are the people who will spend P300 to buy a book and laugh,” says Jadaone.
Biting humor
But whether slapstick or highbrow, Filipino humor has the capacity to cut. “Ang katatawanan ngayon na mas popular at mas kilala sa marami ay yung katatawanan na nagbabara, katatawanan na nanglalaglag (It’s popular today for laughter to be at the expense of another person),” says Ariel Diccion, a faculty member at the Filipino Department and an actor in Silly People’s Improv Theater.
Comedians Tito and Vic Sotto, Joey de Leon, Jose Manalo and Wally Bayola of the popular noontime show Eat Bulaga, for example, are notorious for poking fun at the flaws of co-actors and guests.
This approach to humor can hit below the belt. “It can be really personal,” says Villasanta in in a mix of English and Filipino. “We laugh at someone’s faults and deficiencies.”
Diccion says this phenomenon may have originated from Filipino comedy icons Dolphy and Panchito. In their 1959 movie Kalabog En Bosyo, they play clumsy yet lovable detectives whose misunderstanding of each other leads to comic misadventures.
“The disconnect between characters—that they don’t understand each other—results in something funny,” Diccion explains in Filipino. Today, however, this has evolved into laughing about the disconnect between personal perspectives.
To a certain extent, the humor of Witty Will Save the World Co. can be unkind as well. On social media websites, their mascot, Tita Witty, regularly makes gibes at her fictitious ex-boyfriend and his current significant other.
One tweet reads, “Dear present love ni Ex, feeling ko di pa sya over sakin. Sabi nya kasi dati, mamahalin nya ko hanggang mamatay sya e, e buhay pa sya rayt (Dear Ex-boyfriend’s present love, I don’t think he’s over me yet. He told me before he’d love me for as long as he lives and, well, he’s still alive right)?”
However, Jadaone and Nuque are aware that those in media have a certain responsibility to fulfill. “Media is the umbrella for what everyone from class A to class Z has access to,” Jadaone says in a mix of English and Filipino. “Media can shape a group’s ideology,” she adds. “Whether you like it or not.”
Can witty save the world?
Given both the light and the dark of it, humor permeates Filipino culture. For Nuque, how Filipinos laugh at everything is part of our charm. And though Witty Will Save the World Co. is putting a new spin on Filipino culture, the downsides of crab mentality, even among the seemingly lighthearted, persist.
It’s difficult to change the system of an industry as a whole. But at the end of the day, it boils down to intention. Witty Will Save the World Co. surprises because they encourage looking at things in new ways. Characteristically Filipino candor can make any day lighter. The bottom line is humor’s strength: The rubber-edged sword is sharper than it seems.
With their bravado and wit, Witty Will Save the World has lots of ammunition. The expansion they mean to reach isn’t too far off. As Tita Witty would say: Isang kembot lang ‘yan!
