There’s nothing like casting aspersions on primal femininity to stir the hornet’s nest.
Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago’s disgust over the fashion and bling flaunted at PNoy’s Sona—as insensitive as it is to the poverty around us—is quite simply in bad taste. But doesn’t feisty Miriam’s plan to legislate the wearing of uniforms in the next Sona make her a big killjoy to the elite?
The last time I saw all women wearing the same uniform in public and state affairs was during the classless society of China under Mao Zedong’s dictatorial regime. It looked weird, ugly and utterly demoralizing.
There’s an old cliché on the unresolved social inequality between queens and mistresses of the feudal lords and their peasant servants. The poor get their pleasures and entertainment from performances of circuses and clowns. The equivalent in modern times are the tacky television shows only Willie Revillame can concoct.
It’s quite possible that the rich cannot relate to the filth, stench and hunger of the poor, just like French Queen Marie Antoinette, who, on the eve of the French Revolution, suggested that the poor eat cake to alleviate hunger.
Whole industry
Preventing women achievers, or wives of rich men, from wearing the most beautiful haute couture and jewelry during prestigious gatherings is as anti-women an act as one can inflict on the female species. It’s tantamount to ordering her not to be beautiful.
The need to be pretty, to preen like a peacock when there’s an audience, is as primal to the female physiology as the ovulation that takes place in her womb.
There’s been a whole industry since time immemorial to support the wonders of feminine pulchritude—the business of beauty products, perfumery, haute couture, cosmetology and a whole slew of signature bags and shoes. And let’s not forget the billion-dollar industry of them all, jewelry—the gold, silver, precious stones and diamonds (a girl’s best friend).
No law can possibly justify the need for a woman to be plain, bland and drab. It’s the ultimate act of being inhuman to a woman.
A woman’s got to have the medium for her pulchritude, her gowns and terno, her rings and earrings with bigger karats than those of her closest rival.
Dazzling socials
In the ’50s and ’60s, the country’s most dazzling socials were dominated by two rival clubs holding the classiest affairs, with competing grand balls held annually at the Winter Garden of the Manila Hotel.
The Mancomunidad Pampangueña Ball was the main event of ostentation for the upper-crust families and hacenderos of Pampanga and Central Luzon. Not to be outshone was the Kahirup Club of the wealthy Visayans, led by the sugar barons of the Negros provinces.
The Kahirup and Mancomunidad grand balls gathered the crème de la crème of Philippine upper-crust society, who were loaded with wealth from high-priced exports of sugar and copra during the Commonwealth and post-liberation periods.
In the ’50s and ’60s, at the zenith of the communist rebellion, the Mancomunidad Pampangueña and Kahirup fell into disgrace as showcases of profligacy.
Much of the social unrest took place in the poor rural areas of the Mancomunidad provinces and among the nomadic slave labor of Negros sugar planters.
Martial law in the ’70s put an end to the profligacy of these social bashes, only to be replaced by glitzy affairs in Malacañang featuring jet-setting international celebrities and artists in semi-secluded affairs, away from the eyes of the poor.
Silly hullabaloo
The hullabaloo over the recent Sona fashionistas seemed silly in the scheme of boring governance in the present regime. In fact, no one is willing to die for fashionista continuance or stoppage.
Our society today can put up with the many freedoms allowed in a pluralistic society, some of which rankle people with old values like delicadeza and karangalan.
The exclusion of religion from the crafting of laws sponsored by secularist politicians has relegated the concerns of moralists to the sidelines.
Sen. Miriam Santiago may be fighting windmills in her cause to stop fashionistas at Sona affairs. She might be more substantive and high-impact if she fights to abolish the pork barrel, another of her current pet peeves.
Meantime, I think the four beauties, Senators Loren Legarda and Pia Cayetano and Representatives Lucy Torres Gomez and Lani Mercado, should stay gorgeous in their haute couture. Their stunning beauty is the only antidote to our bland and boring Sona this year. The others should try and do so, too, at the risk of being ridiculed.
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