Find out who Kenkoy is, the Philippines’ most beloved comic strip character whose massive influence resonates through our language, humor, and even antics!
Have you ever wondered the origin of the word “kingkoy” ? Cebuanos usually use that term as a direct translation for the word “cartoon”. It could also be used to describe a person that we think looks cartoonish or silly.
It turns out the word kingkoy comes from a Philippine comics character named Francisco “Kenkoy” Barabas. He was the Philippines’ first true pop icon. Kenkoy is described by famed Filipino artist Nonoy Marcelo as a “ludicrous portrait of the Filipino…pathetically trying but barely succeeding in keeping up with his American mentors”.
Long before the era of the movie stars and showbiz celebrities, there already was a Filipino pop icon that came in the essence of Kenkoy. The character is your everyday funny man. He was a debonair, bombastic, irreverent, hilarious, and best-loved.
Francisco “Kenkoy” Harabas was born on the pages of Liwayway, a weekly magazine, on January 11, 1929. That means that Kenkoy just turned 88 years old last month!
The comics character was conceptualized by artist Romualdo Ramos and inked by the beloved Tony Velasquez.
Because Kenkoy came into this world in the early 30’s, he was garbed with the latest fashion of his time, the Jazz Age, where London-style checkered baggy pants (its hems as wide as one’s shoes), a sailor hat, and a double-breasted polo complete with suspenders, all used as leitmotifs of the age.
Born during the American period when Western influences were beginning to encroach into Filipino culture, Kenkoy adapted to the changing of his times, making fun of the old mores, and is up-to date in the latest trappings of Western fashion. Kenkoy also popularized “pidgin” a language fashionable among youth in the early 30’s. Pidgin was a mixture of Spanish, English and Tagalog languages. Resulting in what was later known as taglish. Kenkoy popularized phrases that became part of the Filipino lexicon like, halo, how is u?, dats orayt, and okidoki.
In the 1960’s, Kenkoy also adapted with the time, influenced by the fashion of the Beatles. He started wearing pantalons, collared sports polo, and Converse rubber shoes. The stories of Kenkoy in the comic strips mostly revolve around his antics. Some of which include courting the “Mara Clara”-like love interest of his, Rosing (who he later married and had several children with), and in earlier plots, his comic rivalry with Tirso S. Upot, who also vied the attention of the shy, timid, and often times selosa, Rosing.
Now the next time you describe someone as kingkoy, always remember that it’s a reference to the iconic Kenkoy himself, who embodies the very definition of the word kingkoy; silly and funny.
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