UNDERSTANDING HUMOR SERIOUSLY

HUMOR SERIOUSLY In Halakhak, the Filipino's hearty laugh and playfulness expands boundaries and paves the way for an inclusive future.

- AYLLI CORTEZ

A LAUGH CAN MEAN ANY NUMBER OF THINGS: happiness, amusement, and even discomfort. But halakhak, the loud and boisterous laughter that comes from deep within the belly, speaks to a distinctly Filipino experience. It captures the urgent need to express what is felt, what the body has to say when the senses take over, and it signals the sudden realization that the world, in all its absurdity, is inexplicably funny.

In her book Halakhak: National Humor in Philippine Popular Cultural Forms, published by UP Press in 2017, Dr. Maria Rhodora G. Ancheta calls attention to the word as a potent force. She believes that Filipino laughter is more than a mark of good nature or a means to cope; it is a sensibility that evolves and engenders national belonging, carrying visions of resistance, reclamation, and hope. In this collection of essays, Ancheta traces the growth of Filipino humor across local media from the 19th to early 21st centuries, seeking to clarify what persists in the country's taste for comedy.

Taking a scholarly approach to our “joking culture” might sound ironic, but this friction lends itself to the book's most playful and meaningful insights. Ancheta, who teaches literature at the University of the Philippines Diliman and specializes in humor studies, finds that Filipino audiences have long poked fun at the strangeness of everyday life. Through signature wit and ingenuity, they are quick to comment on the disparate realities we seem to live in, fueling a constant search for stories that resonate.

By examining well-known yet understudied comedic forms across the performing arts, visual arts, and written texts,