Monday and Friday
YOU'LL like this. Monday's leader opinion column (really an advert for GMA television) was an omigosh-shock-horror expose of one of Davao's girly shows. How the girls earn a peso or two by flaunting their bods.A couple of pages further on there was a full-color, whole-page feature on the world's highest paid supermodels. Girls who earn a peso or two by - um - flaunting their bods. Hypocrisy anyone?
Monday was also Sona day which, as time goes on, seems to be less a serious statement of intent and more an honors list. No? Read the papers, watch the news - everybody and their dog have been jumping up to complain that they, dammit, didn't get a mention.
The MILF (murder and mayhem our specialty), Cebu (in the person of Representative Antonio Cuenco), and, a few evenings ago on television, Joker Arroyo were all fluffed up because he wasn't singled out for approval.
I reckon one of Davao's councilors hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that the Sona was, after all, only a speech made by a politician. And we all know what to make of those, don't we?
Moving smoothly on and dress-down days, those Friday's and Saturday's when office workers leave their uniforms at home and wear something more personal, more them. It's a ritual I've never understood - uniforms promote team spirit and, more importantly, to any visitor they give an impression of neatness and efficiency. Why throw away such advantages?
Friday last I paid a visit to Davao's legal office and after the usual gasps and oohs and ahs - undoubtedly something to do with my manly physique and rugged good looks - I was afforded every courtesy, tendered every consideration and left 30 minutes later well pleased with the information I'd called for but -it was Friday and a dress down Friday.
Now imagine me a Japanese businessman visiting the legal office to clear up a point of local law. Here's Davao City's legal office, the legal office of the premier city of Mindanao and yet some of its staff look to have been outfitted by the “ukay-ukay” store around the corner, one woman in particular wearing a denim jacket and below, a pair of ripped and torn raggedy jeans. What tales I'd take back to Japan!
Have a no-uniform day by all means but surely there must remain some sort of dress code, some benchmark of presentable appearance.
Still on governmental issues, a lot has been made this last couple of weeks of the lunatic proposal that the LTO become an insurance agency but so far every commentator has missed the point. It's nothing to do with public money finding its way into private pockets (perish the thought), nothing to do with rooting out fake agencies (just publish a list of LTO approved companies) and all to do with the government's plan to load us all down - despite GMA's promise to the contrary - with yet more bureaucratic red tape and more government employees paid for by you and me.
No gobbledegook this week. I was tempted to take the hatchet to Tek Ocampo's Monday column "Forbidden Dance," Tek writing as if shower girls hadn't been around for the last twenty-five years and, outside their clubs, advertised with twinkly sparkly lights. But I won't.
