Jejemon fanatics find an ‘ally’ in Catholic bishop

They may be the target of a crackdown from the Department of Education, but "jejemon" fanatics have found an ally of sorts in a Catholic bishop, who said values are more important than language. Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Youth chairman and Legazpi Bishop Joel Baylon said values such as chastity, decency and honesty are more important than a particular use of language. "Language is merely an expression of experience and what is more important are the values behind the language and the principle that shapes the person’s character," Baylon said in an interview on Church-run Radio Veritas, excerpts of which were posted on the CBCP news site Tuesday. Jejemon is a pop-culture phenomenon in the Philippines characterized by a new style of writing — usually in text messages and on online social media platform such as Facebook. “Jejemons," or those who embraced the jejemon fad, write "jeje" instead of hehe to indicate laughter. Using J instead of H might have been derived from Spanish, whose speakers denote the interjection as laughter, or because the letters "h" and "j" are beside each other on the computer keyboard, and that it is appended by "-mon" that came from the Japanese anime Pokémon, with "-mon" meant as "monster," hence "jeje monsters." Simply a fad Bishop Baylon said he is more concerned with what the youth are thinking and how they are reacting to social issues than he is with the jejemon fad. “I am more worried of how the youth reacted to the recent political exercise which was (allegedly) characterized by vote-buying," he said. On the other hand, he said “jejemon" is simply a fad that young people use to express themselves. He likened the phenomenon to the hippies of the 1960s and the jeprox of the 1970s. Yet, Baylon advised teachers not to go along with the trend, but to teach correct grammar well instead. “They should keep, maintain and if possible improve the standards as the youngsters today are not setting standards and they are not telling us how to speak and write," he said. Last week, the Department of Education said it is seeking to cleanse school-age Filipinos of the “jejemon" mentality. DepEd Secretary Mona Valisno strongly “discouraged" young Filipinos from using “jejemon" spelling and grammar, especially in popular communication platforms such as text messaging. [See: DepEd seeks to purge schools of ‘jejemon’ mentality] She said there is the chance of young Filipino students unwittingly degrade their language skills by communicating in "jejemon." — LBG/RSJ, GMANews.Tv