Barretto affair

“Most of us are still curious mammals who can’t possibly mind our own business, haplessly blurring what is private and public.

What’s the latest with the Barretto sisters’ feud? Frankly I don’t know.

Strictly conforming, however, to the proverbial “whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent,” I find it now difficult to do. Everyone I know now talks about it or alludes to it.

So, should you happen to know more about the ballyhooed l’affaire Barretto Sisters than what I have come across in the past few days and which have allowed you to take sides on who among the sisters to defend and believe, kindly do indulge me.

My observations here are merely an attempt to make some sense of a much talked-about event, marginal though it is.

But, before you laugh me out of existence for even attempting a pointless exercise, thinking I am silly for being too showbiz and déclassé, I have always been keenly interested about what makes our public happy or sad.

And this event is a mystery virus infecting the public many of whom I all but find are all too happy being titillated by the most recent salacious behavior involving showbiz characters who aren’t exactly archetypes of virtue and chastity.

Still, even given this mood, I need not go into detailed aspects of this mystery virus since much of it is bubbling out of control all over our newspapers, TV news reports and social media. Doing so too often leads to too many hackneyed clichés, foremost of which is the proverb “truth is stranger than fiction.”

Anyway, since I have not fully ensnared myself in the latest chismaxx, unlike what my favorite meat dealer at my favorite wet market intimated to me about his wife who all but pulled herself closer to the TV blaring on full volume to hear what the sisters were saying against each other and about their powerful “boyfriends,” I did notice a few things, some very old.

One old thing I noted is that most of us are still curious mammals who can’t possibly mind our own business, haplessly blurring what is private and public.

But then I noticed also the Barretto sisters and their kin weren’t objecting to the invasion of their privacy. However distasteful that sounds, it isn’t all that strange or myopic in our times where celebrities rule.

A favorite writer of mine once said about privacy and celebrities that “celebs have always been eager to have their privacy invaded, welcoming the attention of the press for reasons of profession and vanity.”

“While the reader knows a great deal, too much, about them, this is not real knowledge because they are, in their public aspect, not real.”

“They are not persons but personae (‘artificial characters in a play or novel’) which have been manufactured for public consumption with their (public’s) cooperation.”

“Notions of truth and accuracy are irrelevant in such a context of collusive fabrications on both sides; all that matters to anybody — subject, writers, reader — is that it be a good story.”

There we have it — it is all about a good story mesmerizing us into setting aside privacy concerns and prompting us to know more about wild reports about these women’s convoluted relationships with men.

So, l’affaire Barretto Sisters is a good story, an addictive story with murky reveals which even our most talented of formulaic telenovela scriptwriters could have hardly imagined. A mutating story which, even as I write, is leaving us in suspenseful suspended animation on who the good and bad guys really are.

Speaking of formulaic TV scripts, who among telenovela scriptwriters could have dreamed up a scene where a real live President of the Republic has a major cameo right at the start of what promises to be a long-running series of the reality TV variety?

By now, the details of Mr. Duterte’s visit to pay his respects to the Barretto patriarch, Miguel, on 16 October is anecdotal stuff, a masterpiece of telenovela timing and effect worthy of a historical footnote.

Mr. Duterte was at the wake with Sen. Bong Go and presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo when Gretchen Barretto arrived. She gave her estranged mom Inday a hug.

Immediately after Gretchen’s hug of her mom, Mr. Duterte called Marjorie Barretto and tried to patch things up between the feuding sisters. Eyewitness reports say the two feuding sisters, instead of obeying Mr. Duterte, immediately had a heated argument, unmindful of the presidential presence.

Soon after, eyewitnesses say, things went uglier, with Gretchen and niece Nicole allegedly “pulling each other’s hair” and Claudine allegedly “slapping Marjorie.”

Members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) reportedly tried to intervene, trying to separate the squabbling family members, unsuccessfully it seems.

Family matriarch Inday started screaming, “Stop it! Stop it!” along with other mourners, but the sisters wouldn’t listen.

After only six minutes at the wake, a visibly surprised Mr. Duterte was hurriedly escorted out by the PSG.

Mr. Duterte’s cameo role essentially blew the story wide open. Whatever interpretation can be made out of what Mr. Duterte experienced I leave it up to you. But whatever it is, take note that whenever Mr. Duterte is involved it is almost always emblematic of our wild and woolly times.

Anyway, now that I am already sensing l’affaire Barretto Sisters is not all too shoddy, we can assess it independently of the way in which most of us received it. There now remains the question of why this affair reaped success at grabbing massive attention at this particular moment in time in our country.

Answering that question leaves a bad taste in the mouth. The success of the Barretto scandal means nowadays many of us still want to wallow in scandalous orgies about human failings with clearly no purpose and meaning, whether it is in showbiz or politics. Many are still helplessly agog inside a muck signifying nothing.