Hi there,

Obviously it wouldn't sound natural but would it make sense to say, "Bumaba habang buhay"?

Or "Pumatol sa buhay"?

I’m not sure which meaning of “stoop” you’d like to convey. The meanings of what you wrote:Bumaba habang-buhay = Descend all your life – It conjures an image of a bottomless staircase.Pumatol sa buhay – This could be understood as “condescend to life” but since you used a subject-focus verb, it is not clear as to whether you meant it as advice to others or that it happened to you. If “to be humble”: (Laging) Magpakumbabâ sa buhay = (Always) be humble in lifeIf “to debase/degrade oneself”:Magpakababà sa buhay = Debase oneself in lifeIf “to patronize life”:Patulan ang buhay = Condescend to life – The problem with “patulan” and “pumatol”
though is that, depending on which syllable is stressed, “buhay” might be interpreted as “the living” (which can be considered offensive) instead of the intended “life”. To make sure that it will be understood as “life” I would suggest adding “ating (our)” before “buhay” – Patulan ang ating buhay = Condescend to/Patronize our life/lives

Okay, thank you for your effort in providing different meanings. I'm going to reiterate what I'm trying to translate here. It's to "stoop low for life," which means to do nothing good for anyone, for the rest of one's life. Based on this user "Juantutri," the term "Bumaba habang-buhay" fits the best. Literally the message is supposed to sarcastically be dark and negative, as to suggest people should "do wrong, never do right, for the rest of their life."

Bumaba habang-buhay does not make sense to a native speaker. It literally is the translation, but conceptually, it's confusing"Wala nang pag-asa" might be a better translation for " good for nothing" which bascially conveys hopelessness that one will do right with his or her life.

@GuttermanKhan Hi, I stumbled upon this thread. Where does the phrase "stoop low for life......." come from? Is it from standup comedy skit, from a movie or show. I have never heard a phrase like that as a native English speaker. It sounds like a really strange phrase and I would like to know the context of it. It sounds like it belongs to a dark comedy. Also, I've been trying to look online to see if Bisaya has it's own writing script from Baybayin and I found that it not only was the Visayas the originator of the script but there are slight variations to the script from Baybayin. Do you know if this finding is correct?
I hope you find a good tattooist.

@GuttermanKhan I don't think so. Most likely it won't be understood the way you would want it to be. If you'd ask native speakers to back-translate you might get "step/climb down for life". "Stoop" in Tagalog is more of "yuko (bow)" and not "baba". And that's the root 😉 of the problem.

@Nikafab Hi there,So it certainly is supposed to be comedically dark. It's kind of a spin off the Jedis' saying, "May the force be with you... never join the dark side." It actually came from a place I worked though. At the front desk of the hotel, we would put a room rate on the whiteboard at the beginning of the shift as our suggested walk-in rate in case people wouldn't buy the room at the regular online price. One day I walked in and it was so slow at work and we weren't getting any guests to buy rooms. Therefore, I wrote "Stoop Low" on the whiteboard - referring to the price we would sell rooms at. And then it just became an inside joke from there, eventually turning into a whole phrase, "Stoop low for life, never take the high road."

@Bituingmaykinang Thank you very much.

@GuttermanKhan ahhhh, I get it. Definitely makes sense why the phrase is special to you. I used to work in a casino in Las Vegas years ago and know many people who worked in hospitality. Sometimes you have to bring humor into hospitality or your soul will be eaten away by some of the rude and unsavory people you have to deal with. Thank you for sharing 😊