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Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Echaves: The wannabes
By Lelani P. Echaves
The evil that men do, lives after them. And deviating from Shakespeare, the foul name they give, alas, makes suspect of fellow practitioners.
Six days after the much-awaited grand opening of Marco Polo Plaza Hotel on Nivel Hills, guests and other observers are still talking about abusive media practitioners from Manila.
There was this mediaman from a national newspaper who insisted on traveling business class, extended his one-day complimentary accommodation to four days and demanded bending-over-backward hospitality from the hotel’s personnel. He wanted to have Internet access in a particular office. That not being possible, he was offered another office instead. No, he wanted the first office and would listen to no reason for refusal. The tighter the refusal, the more riled up he got, sending him into spasmodic tirades about his time being wasted.
The day after, there he was again, this time at the hotel’s restaurant, making a spectacle of himself. He had asked for a dish-out but since the waitress was still attending to another guest, the narcissist stood up and shouted at the hotel personnel, asking her if she understood English because she hadn’t scurried to his beck and call.
Fortunately, a manager of the hotel attended to the irate customer and himself did the dish-out. Observers knew that if the intervention hadn’t happened, the narcissist might’ve yelled himself purple.
As for the business class plane accommodation, comments went from “Nagpa-importante gyud!” to “Who’s he ba that he’s behaving this way? Mora mag tag-iya.” And immediately, stories recalled how, by marked contrast, a guest was so unassuming during the grand wedding of the daughter of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Frank Benedicto and the son of the late senator Rene Cayetano.
There this guest queued up to the registration table and asked which attendance list he should sign in. The young ladies asked for his name and in a soft voice he said “Tan, Lucio.”
No fanfare, no histrionics, no theatrics, no beating of one’s chest to announce the entry of a billionaire who was going to stand as wedding sponsor.
But that’s often the story of those to the manner born, compared to the wannabes. The former have nothing to prove and so prefer to go low-profile, even if they do not always succeed. On the other hand, the wannabes just wanna be, and so they’ll drop every name they have read or even just met once, in some desperate attempt to partake of someone else’s glory or importance.
How often, for instance, do we see the really rich attending every social function in town? In fact, they keep mostly to themselves, even choosing clothes that do not call attention. Their behavior is no less subdued, preferring to listen to others, even if in doing so, they end up listening to those who talk like they created the world.
Then there’s that group of media practitioners, still from Manila, who said that the new hotel should grow tall trees to spare guests from sight of shanties outside. What, do another Imelda?
Remember how two years after the declaration of martial rule, the Philippines became the venue for the 1974 Miss Universe contest? Manila was witness to the fast transformation of the parade route for all contestants, guests and tourists.
Suddenly, the shanties along the parade route were walled out from public view. The walls and sidewalks became immaculate white, rows and rows of well-manicured lawns grew overnight and multi-colored bougainvillas sprouted from nowhere.
The comment about hiding the shanties is scandalous, especially coming from media practitioners—people who should know that as far as their eyes can reach in this country, poverty resides. And that no tree will ever grow tall enough to hide that reality.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (May 2, 2006 issue)
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