Here’s a serious question to residents of San Pedro City, Laguna: what’s your preferred demonym?
Just to be clear, I will not talk about demons in my column space. What I’m talking about is “demonyms,” which according to dictionaries is “a noun used to denote the natives or inhabitants of a particular country, state, or city.”
During a recent regular session of the Sangguniang Panglungsod of San Pedro City, the city council discussed a letter sent by a group of San Pedro’s citizens – most of them now living abroad – complaining about the current demonym now being used by the city government.
As we all know, the accepted (although not enacted) demonym for residents of San Pedro City for years has been “San Pedronian.” Heck, that was what OpinYon Laguna always used in its articles when talking about San Pedro City’s residents, prior to the 2022 elections.
However, when Mayor Art Mercado took office that year, the city government apparently decided that “San Pedrense” is the more appropriate demonym for the city. Okay, we thought then, so be it – almost everyone accepted that new demonym, even OpinYon Laguna.
And this is the beef of that organization that wrote to the Sangguniang Panglungsod.
The group claims that “San Pedronian” is the more acceptable demonym that has been used for decades, and they expressed their concern that this “more acceptable” demonym is now on the way out.
-o0o-
When we checked with some sources inside City Hall, we learned that “San Pedrense” was used when Mercado took over as mayor because it is the “more accurate” demonym and has been used even older than “San Pedronian.” (To be frank, “San Pedrense” also sounds more pleasing to the ear, as well as more in jive with the Tagalog language as well as the accepted demonym for Laguna province's residents, which is Lagunense.)
What’s more, we learned that there’s currently no local ordinance establishing the “official” demonym for San Pedro City, unlike our neighboring city of Biñan, for instance, which instituted the term “Biñanense” as the correct and official demonym for their city.
So apparently, it’s now up to Mayor Mercado and the Sangguniang Panglungsod to decide which demonym the city should use.
And although this issue could be marred by local politics (since when was local politics in San Pedro City wasn’t heated, anyway?), crafting a local ordinance or executive order on the issue, in my view, could solve all this confusion and angst over the true identity of the residents of San Pedro City.
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