Some People Need Killing

by Patricia Evangelista

There is, however, a fourth meaning. In 2015 the OED appended what it called a draft definition to the official entry. Salvage: Philippine English. “To apprehend and execute (a suspected criminal) without trial.” Our use derived first from the Spanish. Salvaje, an adjective introduced by the conquistadors, translated into “wild.” My people took salvaje and adapted it into our verb salbahe. “The way it is used in Filipino is different,” the historian Ambeth Ocampo told me. “Sinalbahe means that the person was savaged, not that the person was good, bad, or a savage. Then we made the Spanish adjective into a verb, sinalvaje, and read it with the j into a g.”