UP to now, I think that most every Filipino knew what this word meant — until very recently, the Supreme Court made an issue out of it. Social media reproduces the exchange between one of the justices of the Supreme Court and the solicitor general, who was quizzed on what “family” means and who made some rather surprising, not to say, disturbing admissions, to the line of tendentious questioning. This is an issue that involves both the philosophy of language and the philosophy of law.