Thursday, November 15, 2007 So: Akbar, a congressman’s tip By Michelle P. So Caught in the Net
AT about 9 p.m. Tuesday, thoughts of congressmen occupied my mind in my hotel room in Cagayan de Oro City. The masseuse was just telling me about the tipping habits of a Northern Mindanao congressman, a client of hers.
This congressman, prominent enough to get space in the main news section of national papers, is a generous tipper. According to her account, he once tipped her P3,000 for a home service massage. A masseuse he had found pretty got P4,000 in tip. (I guess my masseuse was P1,000 less pretty than her co-worker.)
The tip was a windfall, she said. It was more than what she would regularly make in a month kneading people’s bodies, she said. The congressman doesn’t ask for extra service; he simply wants a long, good massage that will lull him to sleep, she said.
I thought about what she said about the congressman. He was just trying to help her and show thanks for the good service. Just then ANC flashed the story about the Batasan explosion.
Minutes into the ANC coverage, it became clear that Rep. Wahab Akbar of Basilan died from injuries. The bomb was meant for him but it killed two others and injured 12 more, including Reps. Luzviminda Ilagan (Gabriela, partylist) and Pryde Teves (Negros Oriental, 3rd district).
I lost interest in the masseuse’s stories and she sensed it because I stopped asking her questions. My attention was on the Basilan congressman, no longer on her congressman client. I felt her resentment toward Akbar for pulling my focus away from her congressman.
I remember a TV feature about Akbar and his three wives whom he had run for governor and mayor in two towns in Basilan. The feature was aired last May, shortly before election day.
In that feature, the wives spoke of him reverentially and said it was all for the good of Basilan and their towns to be run by the Akbar family. Better coordination in project funding for the strife-torn province, they said. There won’t be overlapping of functions for them because they each have their turf, they said. And Akbar said something that he would give his wives autonomy to manage their own local governments and that he would serve as their adviser.
Whether they are carrying out what they said on TV is anyone’s guess. We can only ascertain this if we stay in Basil an long enough to know its politics and peace.
With Akbar gone, I don’t know how the dynamics between the wives will go. Akbar’s enemies had tried three times to kill him before succeeding last Tuesday night, and they did it when he least expected it. There was no running from fate.
I told the masseuse that had Akbar seen her, he might have considered her for a wife and maybe make her run for mayor too. The masseuse was not bad looking, going by her silhouette against the TV glare.
She didn’t know Akbar, she said, but she has a Malaysian datu for a regular client. The datu has invited her to Malaysia for a visit, she said. And like her congressman, he is a generous tipper, she said. So we’re back to her congressman.
When she was done, I gave her a P100 tip. I told her I was neither congresswoman nor bai.
