antecoitus

sa wakas…

Too much have been said and written about her. People have
found great interest on her OFW bashing skills, her Jo Malone vs Axe comments,
her gold open toed sandals and how absolutely repulsive she looks (we could
have hurt her ego more, if we talked less about her looks and more about her
shameless efforts to sound well-bred and important when she was doing the exact
opposite). I still wonder how she was able to include all that in her
travelogue.Did she even once talk about Greece? We gave her something that her
mere 3 thousand per weekday circulation newspaper was not able to give her, a
public. The thing is, I understand Malu Fernandez – why she did not immediately
comprehend why people did not find her acerbic wit amusing.

Malu Fernandez is a socialite, she comes from a very rich
family (that is if you compare with your average Filipino one) and has been
programmed to regard herself better than everyone else, in the silliest ways
even. People like her have money, when and if there’s no other explanation for
their prominence. Since they have it, they would either flaunt it because they
are bored and/or they need to feed their ego. They need to breathe it and breed
it. In the American Gilded age, they also pertained to authors, artists i.e.
people with artistic realizations, or people with some official stature. Most
of those who are able to dominate the social scene, though are those who try
hard to be noticed, those who are not of the professions nor stature mentioned
above. They are the ones who make an
effort to be seen even when they have the least to show. Malu spends her time with fashion, parties,
brands, trips, pampering and primping herself. She writes what she thinks are
human interest articles – perfume, connections, what not to wear to the gym,
good looking men she wants to but apparently cannot have. That is her world.
Shallow and hollow it may seem to a lot of people, this is the way she has been raised. Who can
fault her for that? . So she has closed her eyes to the truth around her,
even if all four feet of it knocks daily on the window of her classy, pricey
car, selling strings of sampaguita. Maybe as disparities grow we become more
used to what is happening around us, they become permanent fixtures to the
backdrop which we take as normal. I’ve heard some people actually exclaim,‘God,
I’ve never seen so much poverty’ (at wala rin silang imagination, bow). Some of
these people have lived in M a n i l a all their lives, drove or have been
driven to and from work or school looking out their windows. I guess, it’s
easier to ignore it than to acknowledge the actuality of being part of it.

There is a sad scary truth as to how she has come to
appreciate bludgeoning those who as she said are not of her level (myemyemye,
ulul. eherm, sorry, I forgot myself.=)), how she, and well, her friends are
able to dismiss shaming have-nots, funny.

She can.

She has a medium for it. Manila Standard, allows her to. A
lot of other newspapers allow a lot of their kind to. Hell, we allow it as
well. The readers have all this time been fine with reading poorly written
articles that have no coherence and are crammed with typos, as long as the name
attached to it is known by say, less than a percentage of our population (the
same way we are fine with celebrities running for office, hehe or maybe I
should say the way we have made them believe that its ok.). That is, until she
said something so blatantly horrifying. Well, as if the other things she has
written are any different. If I were, Malu, knowing that I’m not the greatest
of writers, I would have just written a blog and gave access to my A-list
friends so we can all shower each other with conversations on perfume and
people-I-am-BFF-with (its ok for someone featured on MTV’s my super sweet 16 to
still use BFF but for a woman her age and declared stature, hehe.. sandali lang
susuka lang ako).. there, we will feign having real opinions, and will be free
to be as brutally honest as we can.We can all live in a snow globe ignoring the
fact that there is a mighty big difference between being honest and being
cheaply, snottily cruel.

It’s fabulous to be like Malu. To not have to achieve
anything that has made a difference but to still be mingling with people who she
thinks have. How fabulous is it to be cool by association? To be celebrated
without having to have any contribution? To be in the society pages of the
latest broadsheet issue without having the damndest clue about the realities of
our society? Some of us are unable to control gag reflex (same way I actually
had to go to the bathroom to throw up, during the first Oblation run, the first
time I saw a weener) when we see them pose for the cameras for Lifestyle
magazines which is read by people who can actually afford to pay 20-30 pesos to
look at those pictures (those who can afford that are becoming less and less).
Some of us actually ooh and aah and some little part of us actually want to be
one of them.

There is no excuse for her behavior but there is an
explanation. A very very disturbing reality we have to recognize and assume
responsibility for. We all made it alright to act this way, inadvertently. We
all made it possible through apathy or through excessive passion that
segregates echelons and types even more. We have judged each other’s decisions
claiming an invisible right to. It’s frightening how we, through the divisions
resulting from our economic and social truths have produced someone like her.
Worse, we have actually allowed her thoughts to be accessible to a lot of
people by allowing her to pen them. I believe though that we are able to get
out of this predicament, because I still believe in my fellow Filipinos, no
matter where they are, btw. (Gamitin ang mga socialites, para may katuturan ang
pagrampa nila, mukhang madali lang naman silang pasayahin e, utuin lang ng
konti hehe whatif?) It’s the how that stumps me still.

Sidenote: In as much as I cannot relate to Malu’s psyche, I am elated
that her transgression has placed the OFW’s, in a better light. I have heard so
much direct and indirect clobbering about the fact that I am living and working
somewhere else, for supporting the brain drain, for not working for the
government and still having used taxpayers’ money to pay for my education. Some
people even have the candor to suggest that they are staying in the p h i l i p
p i n e s because they like it there, and what does it mean, I don’t? Oh well,
as long as it makes them feel better. All I know is that for once we look like
good people again, even if some of us are not really sending remittances or
working. I vow to enjoy that for a while

21/8

Tracking what I have been up to for the past couple of months is a chore. There are too many entries on my calendar of trips that have turned into mere wishful thinking. I found out three entries which said –holiday t u s c a n y- which I struck with two thick angry lines each. The trip Wojtek and I have been planning for the longest time, has not come to fruition. Instead I found notes pertaining to sending reminders about my employment contract, reminders to book my flights and hotel rooms for work, reminders to iron heaps and heaps of clothes, reminders to go grocery shopping or pay bills. I feel quite exhausted but feel that I have had no real personal accomplishments other than work, that I can say I truly recognize. Or maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Fortunately,  1.) I have read a lot more books than I used to have time for (no thanks, to airport layovers), 2.) watched more films and caught up on more TV series (what with hotel room nights and being trapped in airports because you missed your connecting flight?) and 3.) was able to actually have very nice buys from the summer sale season this year, since shopping has been my escape from sitting still – shopping is a sport that takes a significantly shorter time (yes max 2 hours for me, otherwise I get whiny on myself) than going for a trip or for the ritual of any real sport and absolutely is several times more distracting. Oh well, it could have been worse. It’s possible that I spent the past couple of months taking baby steps to bigger goals – like moving from P r a g u e , learning the new job and well, maybe, just maybe — getting older?

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Every time I come home from a work trip, we drive straight to this pleasant little Japanese restaurant from the airport, which does not shout ‘c z e c h is landlocked and thus you pay with your soul for seafood’.  That’s my current comfort food aside from Ateh’s kare-kare, nilaga and liempo (hehehe blocked artery central! May isang beses na talagang nag-palpitate ako dahil sa taba, nataranta si Ateh at pinalaklak ako ng green tea.). Masaya na ko nun. There is something unquestionably the matter with me though… it seems… that I have outgrown partying. Nooooo!! Yes. I currently find boozing, dancing and getting sticky with sweat and cigarette smoke not as invigorating as before. Partying seems to be the fountain of youth for many people. Once we have gone out there, danced as wild as we can in the shortest possible time as if we had a curfew, drowned in jagermeister or one of lucifer’s concoctions, and rubbed bodies (shoulders and elbows, not necessarily.. you know) with absolute strangers, we sleep at 7 in the morning and have a little ‘I woke up in a dumpster’ or ‘I threw up on some guy’s shoe’ story the next day and laugh about it. I guess I’ve frolicked copiously enough along those lines in the past that I have somehow ran out of fuel for it these days. These past couple of months I’ve only been out thrice, twice with the girls and once with Wojtek. Once Rina and I went out for a drink somewhere in P r a g u e  and we ran across a shady character who would not leave us alone, I ended up sleeping at her place because she got rather spooked. That night with Rina was only even about getting a couple of cocktails in a couple of bars, it wasn’t even about getting crunk. Hah, whatiswrongwithme?

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A couple of weeks ago I bought a bike in preparation of moving to a much less hilly city (actually a very flat one), which translates to a total change in our means of transport. Knowing that Wojtek is extremely delighted with his brand (Specialized), he found me one on sale in a women’s frame. It drives very nicely and I got the gears agreeing with me pretty well already. Unfortunately I have not ridden it  again because I have been drowning in Demerol and white sheets of late. The operation to take the metal off my forearm made me stay in the hospital for a measly three days, not bad. I will not make the metal detectors go crazy on me again. Kidding, it has only been a couple of times when airport security can’t explain why I keep on beeping even when they have peeled me thoroughly enough already. But the doctor’s orders were to stay put in one place for a couple of weeks until the control check is done, which will be this Thursday. I decided to have the operation after a week of breakneck, harried traveling (one which also took me for a visit to  c o p e n h a g e n where the Baretto clan still regally thrives, *waves*, and where I again met with my much loved Mama El, *waves again*). Now I have been practicing the lost art of chillaxing. I guess, this is as close to a vacation as I will get. At least for now.