IT’S a good thing the Palace shot down a Quezon City lawmaker’s proposal to declare tomorrow, January 30, a holiday so that Filipinos can stay home and watch the Miss Universe pageant from the comfort of their living room.
People will probably be watching from anywhere they are because these days you don’t need to be seated in front of your television set at home to see anything, real-time. You can be at your office, in school, in a moving vehicle—anywhere.
But that is not even the point. Rep. Winston Castelo’s proposal betrays a misplaced sense of what is important and what should be secondary.
We do not dispute that the holding of the pageant here brings us some cheer. This is sorely needed—at a time when we can no longer trust those who are mandated to protect us, and when it appears human life is a commodity with a value that varies depending on where one is on the social ladder.
The pageant may also do something to convince the rest of the world that terror threats and killings notwithstanding, the Philippines remains a country worth visiting.
But calling off work and school for the occasion is, at best, silly. Think of the lessons to be missed and productive work to be foregone—and for what?
Then again, Castelo may just be taking a cue from his President who famously said he did not want his day to end when he was visited last week by the dozens of attractive women vying for the title.
The same President also said he was envious of the just-inaugurated US President because the latter was a billionaire and had a statuesque woman for a wife.
This obsession with pageants is understandable but must be tempered with proportion. When the winners are announced and when the candidates return to their respective homes, what we would be left with are the same ugly realities that we sought to forget for a while in our zeal to surround ourselves with beauty.