What is pikot?
Filed under Sassy Lawyer • Tagged: culture, kids, marriage, op-ed column, parenting, society
(Today’s column)
Every three years, my husband’s eldest brother, his wife and two sons spend three weeks in the Philippines. He and his wife have been living in a suburb of Chicago for over 20 years and both of their sons were born and raised there. They arrived over a week ago and, last Sunday, we all drove to Laguna for a day of recreation and bonding.
Towards the end of the day, as everyone prepared for the drive back to Metro Manila, the older of the two sons, Max, was talking about his plans for the night. He’s 21, Metro Manila has a throbbing nightlife and he meant to make the most of it. He has tasted it during their previous vacation and they have gone out several times already since they arrived on August 1.
An interesting discussion between Max and his mother ensued. He wanted to meet up with a girl he met a few nights ago through a makeout club (defined by Wikipedia as “a music subculture related social networking and message board website” whose “stated purpose is to act as a social network for persons with similar musical tastes”) and who had been texting him incessantly. His mom was anxious, not too convinced about the girl’s background. Max’s father joined in and started mouthing stuff that most fathers regularly recite to their kids. From the sideline, my own 15-year-old daughter, apparently sympathizing with Max, chimed in (with a very audible “buntong-hininga” and a visible shake of the head followed by a roll of the eyes) about how all parents seem to say the same things to their children.
Now, Max is a nice young man and a very good-looking one too. He placed his arm around his mother’s shoulder, turned to my husband and I, and explained, “See, she’s the Queen and she has to be obeyed. So, it’s really difficult sometimes.” That was when the word “pikot” entered the discussion.
“What’s pikot?” asked Max.
His father responded, “Ah, you’ll find out if it happens to you.”
I heard the following morning that Max and his younger brother, Alex, did go out on Sunday evening in the company of a trustworthy family friend.
But let’s talk about pikot. Probably, the closest contextual translation would be a shotgun wedding. But pikot is more than that. It involves deceit, wile and a victim who dare not turn his back on what is “right” according to the values and traditions he was raised with.
Pikot is a design and strategy initiated by a girl, her parents or all of them together to trap a man into marrying her. It can be something as simple as a girl allowing a boy to kiss her in some dark corner of their garden where her parents very conveniently surprise them. With or without the girl’s connivance, they declare how the boy has ruined their daughter’s good reputation and must, therefore, do the honorable thing and marry her.
The girl’s parents, however, are not indispensable in a pikot campaign. A wily girl can do the job all by herself. For instance, there was this young woman with a boyfriend of five years. In her mind, a five-year relationship meant they would end up marrying each other. But every time she broached the subject to her boyfriend, he was non-committal. In this generation, five years means they have gone beyond the hand-holding stage, right? So, one day, she simply told him she was pregnant. Whether that statement was followed by an explanation that she lost count of her cycle or the thermometer broke, I don’t know. But they did get married two months later and separated several years afterwards.
A boyfriend is not the only likely victim in a pikot strategy. A woman can choose a man whom she perceives to have a strong sense of “honor” and likely to “stand by her.” Casual sexual encounters can lead to marriage if the girl manages the dates of the encounters correctly to make sure she gets pregnant. And there are worse scenarios. A girl, pregnant by a man who cannot marry her (usually a married man), hooks up with a nice boy, tells him she’s pregnant with his child and, tra la la, they end up exchanging marriage vows. If she’s really, really good at it, the boy does not find out until much later (if he does, at all) that he had been duped.
A lot of people say that in this generation when the young tend more to run away from marriage than plunge headlong into it, pikot, just like “tanan” (elopement) has gone out of fashion. I’m not very convinced about that. Pikot may have evolved but it is still there. While “honor” and “good name” may have been driven parents of old to force a boy to marry their daughter, pikot today has taken a more financial aspect. A girl is encouraged by her parents to lead a boy on, even to the point of sleeping with him and getting pregnant, because they perceive him as a “good catch.”
In whatever form, pikot is only possible when the intended victim lives by traditions that say marriage is the only way to make things right with a girl whose virginal image has been tarnished. Easy enough with Filipinos raised the traditional way. But with a young man like Max who has been more exposed to the permissive American culture than the honor codes (sic) of Filipino culture, can a designing girl win?
Be smart, Max. Be smart.
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We feast everyday!
Gasp!!!!! So is that why I’m married??!! I didn’t know what hit me – now I do hahaha
Bad, bad, bad. Your wife will hit you for that HAHAHAHA
My wife sometimes asked me if I would’ve married her had she been a fling or a one-night stand. My answer was “of course not!”
Marriage is reserved for people worth marrying. Anything less is a broken family in the making.
Uso pa ba ngayon yung “pikot”? Couple nowadays live together without the benefit of marriage hindi ba?
Jon, can you define “people worth marrying”?
berN, living together is for CONSENTING parties. Pikot applies when the man’s consent is forced.
LOL! I’ll show this post to my wife and observe her reaction.
Pikot pala ang tawag doon if there is(what’s your term for it?) “duress” involved.
aaarh that is “pikot” now I know, 15years ago I came to Korea for a visit to my korean girlfriend and in a few days of my stay I ended up marrying her and never came back..ha ha ha ha
I’m wondering why only males are commenting on this post.
Teka lang, how come “pikot” applies only to men? :p
Seduction for women; pikot for men.
ako hindi napikot. Nakuha ko sa pakiusap.
Sa bahay namin, ako ang tigre! Kaya lang, asawa ko ang trainer.
I find it hard to understand that a piece of paper (marriage certificate) can hold an unwilling partner to a life of misery. You may be legally bound but you can walk away from a bad marriage and start a new life…as long as you leave everything you own, including the shirt on your back, to your espouse LOL.
Tito Rolly, HAHAHAHAHAHA I can imagine Tita Nitz with a whip hahahaha
bertN, re leaving everything you own. ain’t that the whole point? and doesn’t that make the “financial” aspect of pikot easier to understand? LOL
I applied seduction to her, pero hindi omobra. In the end, I got hooked dahil sa kanyang “pakipot”. Was that typical of a Filipina during our time?
A well “prepared” man can avoid that, but alas, most men enjoy being “unprepared”. Back in my carousing days, my group of friends make fun of the fool who forgets his “pikot package” at home. =)
Most guys I know always say ‘napikot lang sila’. Even my husband say that despite the fact that I have a card to prove that a few months before our wedding I broke up with him and he was begging me for another chance. Si speedy ba hindi ganyan?
“Si speedy ba hindi ganyan?”
Sampalin ko kaya sya. HAHAHAHAHA
I hope men, since men is what pikot is applied to, nowadays will show some sense and not let themselves be forced to marry a girl because she got knocked up. If he doesn’t want to, he can always just give child support. If he thinks that the baby isn’t his, he can always get a paternity test.
If they have a reputation to uphold, eh more money will probably do the trick. (Evil)
There wasn’t a pregnancy involved, but I still feel like I was manuevered into it…like I was sleepwalking single and suddenly woke up married hahaha.
Pikot happens when the man can’t stand his ground and defy the pressure coming from the girl, the girl’s parents, his parents, etc…
Kung ayaw magpasakal, tapos ang usapan! Even if pregnancy is involved, marriage isn’t a solution if there is no willingnes. It’s like the start of married life based on a lie.
The best defence is to be good, or be smart, or be safe.
pinayhekmi, rather than pay off, eh di “see you in court” na lang hehehe
Miguk, I’m intrigued. Really.
Peterb, re “Kung ayaw magpasakal”
Is that a typo?
Really? I’m sure it was some witchcraft/bruha spell hahahaha
What’s the word… gayuma? BWAHAHAHAHA
Connie,
People who are capable of sustaining relationships + have some sense of responsibility. I know the “wife/husband material” is a lousy stereotype, but somehow such people do exist.
I have to admit, it IS hard to define
HILARIOUS GUYS!
Jon, I’ll respond to you in a new entry.
nope. hehe
ah! so that’s the definition of “pikot”! haha! thanks for the advice tita, very in-depth and informative. i still don’t see why anyone couldn’t have explained it backwhen we were in laguna! haha! either way thak you for your concern. no need to worry about me, i’m a free bird and have already moved on.
Great to know, Max. Miss you.
“pinoyhermi-If he doesn’t want to, he can always just give child support.”
that’s fine if he does give support but there are plenty of women who get knocked up and the men just disappear…and guys hate using condoms to avoid getting the girl knocked up (their excuse: it’s like taking a shower with a raincoat )
I have one such cousin — good looking and an American citizen, who had been raised in the US for most of his life. On his first visit to the Philippines — pikot!
A lot of those raised away from the Philippines by Filipino parents who rhapsodize about how wonderful the home country was, still do instill in their children some (what the young Filipinos kids these days would call) “old fashioned” “values” like honor and obedience.
So if a nice young man comes to the Philippines filled with raging hormones, who could mistake sex for love, and meets up with a wily, green card-loving, take-me-away from-all-this lass, pikot still does happen — and more often than you would think.
omg…..I love this article…. though am so late at this.
the most obvious part is garapalan with threats while in most cases it so subtle it is sometimes hard to pick up a few hints…. but it is always there. I look at it as an art to those who uses it.
I’ll be straight to the point our newest double pikot case (parang double bypass – masakit isipin). Our very good young friend an IT guy son of Filipino US serviceman raised in the Philippines until he came over here in his early 20s (now he is late 30s). I remember we teased him “whats wrong with you” because he never had a gf, pogi, super ba-it, 5-9, well built, etc. So everybody arranged a lot of blind dates including our known friends but to no avail. Sayang talaga!
One day, he went back to the Philippines for vacation. Guess what? Pikot agad.
He was already talking of wedding in the US when he came back. As usual all the family members voiced out against it especially his psychic sister who seemed to know the girl from the day one and warned him bad about her. We can’t imagine the girl was so vulgar in language when she was raised conservatively in the Philippines. We were actually shocked even if we have been so exposed in America. But probably, that what clicked-in our very good friend, he needed fire coz he is the water type.
Everybody gave him the benefit of doubt, it his life anyway. After marriage, her true nature is revealed. She told him she did not want a child (a ground for annulment in a Catholic marriage – deceit and against procreation). She always wanted nightlife, spend here and there, separate bedroom, etc. Let’s fast forward. She became US citizen, she divorced him and ask 50% of his house (he was so gullible, he added her name to the title when we found out later – must have been some acrobatic moves or something Russians would do???).
She was having affair with her Mexican boss and another guy before she asked for divorce from him. Namangka sa ibat iba ilog, ew. So distasteful. Maybe that hooked our friend because she was wild in bed when he confided later. Rewind, we just understand why we cringed when we she compared men’s tools at some point in time.
Anyway, we thought that life is fair and, solution by nature is given and his misery is over. End of the story.
Wrong. After divorce, all famililes and friends have supported him to move on and arrange again and again for suitable and proper wife. Ahay! The girl got pregnant and behind the scene communicating with our very good friend. Lately, he is dating her again with a child not his own.
What the ????? PIKOT PART 2. His family has disowned him. We, the close circle of friends wanted to drop him out especially my wife. But my advice, even how we hated the girl, our friend is our friend. If he chooses to suffer let him be like St Joseph. But let us not make it hard for him than what he is doing for her.
This brings back to the issue of PIKOT, it is an art. There are exceptional women (not meant to be compliment) who are good at it.
Pikot does come in many forms – some so subtle, it escapes the man. Women use many forms of manipulation and uncertainty in a man makes him helpless. There are many men who marry even if they are unsure of their desire. I have a friend who was manipulated into marriage. He was living in with a woman for a few years and in a family gathering where all the relatives of the woman were present, the woman told him to make THE announcement. He never asked her nor planned with her their future prior to that event. But he was not certain of his comings & goings – except you may conclude that marrying her was the farthest from his mind because he also maintained other relationships with other women while he was living in with her. And because he had nothing better to do, he figured it was probably time, so “sige na lang…sabi mo eh…” And that was that. To this day, he will always claim he was only force into marriage. He is fearful of having to relate with her without the plurality of all his affairs. He never really wanted it to be just them. But he’s Filipino and he was a screwed up sense of whats right by a woman. So instead of telling her “no,” im not in love with you enough to marry you, he married her and told himself he will express his love for other women instead. The pikot goes on…If you ask me, what you get out of force can never be yours. It may be yours today but you will never be satisfied. Consider my friend’s wife. She is always in fear of losing her husband to another woman. of course he wouldnt break up his family and his children, but he would never consider staying with her without the benefit of relating in love with some other woman. Last I heard, she held a loaded gun to his face demanding he tell her the name of his current lover
Oh my gosh, d0d0ng and Yogi, the true-to-life stories you related really proves that pikot is still very much alive. I wonder… is it a Spanish legacy perhaps?
Be very very careful out there. This is not exclusive of Filipino culture. Women from other cultures do this too. This happened to me when I decided to break it off with an Oriental girl I was going out with for about a year. She has been stalking my house, coming into my apartment complex knocking on the doors. Coming to my work bothering me, causing a scene. I’ve been able to successfully mitigate those. But one weekend, she decided to pull of the I’m pregnant routine… I went to her house to confront her. I had to be calm because I wanted to get to the bottom of this. She basically refused to show me the pregnancy test. But I finally found it. She wanted to use the threat of pregnancy to keep me. The test said: “NOT PREGNANT.” So I left and I will never talk to her again. Girls like this are scary. I hope the worst is over.
wow..
that is what happened to me.. even though we proven that she is not pregnant she still claims that i have a child with her,, she is sick and insane. she does a lot of things that is so scary. all that i have known about her is a lie. what a big mistake that i did. so be careful to those so had read this.
Ako yata ang napikot, or maybe it’s emotional blackmail hehe
re: makeout club
greenminded talaga ko… akala ko may bagong slang
That was my first reaction too hehehe