Let Madam party
The party actually proved something reassuring. In difficult times a nation must project confidence. You cannot run a country on sulking.
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The party actually proved something reassuring. In difficult times a nation must project confidence. You cannot run a country on sulking.
The First Lady throws one beautiful little party in Malacañang — tasteful, elegant, chandelier doing fantastic work — and suddenly everyone in the country is an expert on suffering.
If the country were truly starving, nobody would have the energy to be this angry.
Think about it. Real hunger makes people quiet. Weak. You lie down. You conserve strength. But Filipinos? Amazing stamina. Protesting online. Incredible calorie reserves.
So already the crisis is looking a little exaggerated. Because crises always sound terrible when you read about them. Inflation this, diesel that, fake news all over Facebook. But then we see Mrs. Marcos’ Latina soiree and we realize something comforting: The country still functions beautifully.
The party actually proved something reassuring. In difficult times a nation must project confidence. You cannot run a country on sulking. Imagine if Malacañang turned off all the lights and served hotdogs. What message does that send to the world?
People call the party wasteful. We call it extremely efficient. Think about the electricity savings. Instead of hundreds of people scattered across Manila turning on lights in their houses, Mrs. Marcos gathered them in one room.
One light. Fifty elites. Genius! The Department of Energy should be studying this woman.
And look at the traffic outside the Palace. Terrible. Also, if people were truly poor, they wouldn’t even have cars to sit in while complaining. You can’t have national collapse and EDSA traffic at the same time. It’s impossible.
We must also acknowledge the sacrifice made by the First Lady that evening. Inflation is serious now. Even luxury food is getting expensive. Somewhere in that kitchen a chef probably had to make a painful substitution. Maybe the lobster was slightly smaller. The quiet tragedies of governance.
And the guests. We must admire the discipline. These people still had the strength to continue eating. Extraordinary resilience. “Times are tough,” we imagine one of them saying, very thoughtfully, while cutting the lobster.
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For years Malacañang had no First Lady. Very quiet palace. Sad palace, frankly. Almost depressing. Like a government office.
Now it’s behaving like a palace again.
And people complain it looks too comfortable? We don’t understand the complaint. A palace is supposed to look comfortable.
This is the problem with the public. They misunderstand leadership. Leadership is not about sharing hardship. If the First Lady looks magnificent under a chandelier, suddenly the nation remembers: Ah, that’s the destination. Very inspiring. Dreams are important. Someday, maybe you will get invited.
So no, Madam, anger is not the problem. Filipinos are angry every week. They say the poor are suffering. Of course, they are suffering. That’s their specialty. But the one thing they refuse to suffer quietly is the suspicion that someone inside Malacañang is having a better evening.
The dangerous thing is curiosity.
Curiosity makes people stare at the palace gates. Curiosity makes them imagine what’s happening inside. And once, not so long ago, curiosity made a lot of Filipinos climb. Very athletic.
A palace should always glow a little. Just not so brightly that people outside begin wondering how many lobsters it takes to produce that level of light.
