fucking rich people
today is a day of pure, unabashed debauchery.i was supposed to meet jay at power plant mall, rockwell, to do a photo shoot on the budji layug showroom at bel-air makati, but i went to rockwell 3 hours early, so i decided to run some errands. and some shopping.
like i said in my earlier blog post, i officially downsized to a 33, so i had to have some pants altered, and some jeans downsized. first stop: levi's, where i got my favorite pair, square cut 522 slims in broken-in wash (second to brand new wash) in 33. the 34 was falling off, and i could no longer wear it without a belt, so that was a go-signal for me to change sizes. anyway.
since the levi's store is attached to dockers (and the fitting area's at the dockers side), i couldn't help but stare at a couple trying on pants at the dockers area. the guy's an expat, and based on his accent i could guess he was french, and he was with his filipina girlfriend, a woman who's 5 inches smaller than him, and just couldn't keep her arms off his waist. she was carrying three shopping bags: one from lacoste, another from zara, and still another from french connection. it's obvious that the bags contained girly items, and it's obvious from the impression she's giving everyone that the money came from her expat boyfriend. the guy was acting all tough, macho and mighty against the staff, flinging the pants he already tried on, acting all arrogant and bitchy to the manager (who i managed to befriend over the many times i've been to the store), while the girl played second fiddle to him.
i don't know, but there's something just awfully wrong with this scenario. first, there's that racial and sexist metaphor that a filipina woman can never have enough money to buy her own stuff, so she's clinging on the white trash bitch. second, just because the staff can't buy their own jeans is no basis for them to lose their humanity. in my case, i always make sure i fold back everything i touch, and never try on more than 4 items at a time. i know what it's like for the staff, so i try not to be a bother as much as possible, even if i buy P8,000 worth of jeans.
but attitude towards the staff isn't really the issue here. it's the whole system of power play we have in this urbanized society. the state apparatuses have been working double time to make sure we never get the idea to survive on our own, that the nationalization of local industries is only gonna make us all broke, and that pinay women should be whores to rich expats to move up the class ladder. but wait. there's more.
after we did the shoot and interview (it's for another blog post), jay dropped me off to greenbelt 4 where i trudged to louis vuitton to get my mom the spring/summer 2006 catalog. and just as when i finished looking at the P24,000 coin purse, i saw a woman, with an older guy, carrying four big shopping bags of prada, yves saint laurent (rive gauche), gucci, and, surprise surprise, louis vuitton. i got depressed for a second (that they have more cash [or credit] than i do), and guilty (why the hell am i basking myself in the bastion of those who have robbed those belonging to the socio-economic peripheries of the right to live decently), and agitated.
i went to diesel at greenbelt 3, to check out their new jeans. and tried on the lemmon jean that's part of their new wave collection for s/s 2006. the denim shitload costs P14,000. the fit is perfect. the details are convincingly genuine. the fabric is durable. but at that price, either the target market's crazy or the store won't be moving inventory too soon. but no! when i asked their in-store concierge if there were still stocks for lemmon, she told me it was the last piece. all 25 other pieces were sold out. in a week. for a minute i asked myself: who the hell buys these fucknig jeans? then i remember: who the hell owns the country's wealth right now? smackdown logic.
i decided to take the mrt instead of having anyone fetch me at the ayala/makati area, since it was raining hard and if i did call someone, it'd take longer for me to get home. it was 8p, and i was pressed against the bodies of a shitload of other men in an mrt that can only be compared to a sardine can. i thank myself for having had the mrt to take me near home faster than a bus or jeep. then i remember: whatever revenue the stores i went to generate is more than enough to support another wage hike. and another. and another.
and then going home from gateway, i listened to the car's am tuned to dzmm. guillermo luz, donald dee and the rest of the business "community" are complaining that the wage hikes are not gonna help their businesses stay "afloat." which means they might have to lay off people. but one of them (i forgot) was wearing balenciaga the last time i saw him. the other one, prada. this, while some people go around town with only a couple of sets of clothes on heavy rotation. so heavy, their seams are unraveling faster than they can say "sastre."
fucking rich people can do whatever they want in this society. they can do whatever they want in manila. hell, they can do whatever they want in the country. they have it by the neck.
putang ina. it's all i can say. but i guess putang ina alone's not gonna feed anyone a decent meal.
xanananananana
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