Passing Thoughts

I’m supposed to be busy doing major work on my talking points for a scheduled engagement tomorrow (minding that I still have to catch a 9:50 flight tonight), but recent events that have shaped the news across multi-media platforms (tv, radio, newspapers, internet) these past three days kept derailing my train of thoughts.

From the car radio, to the parking lot, inside the elevator, to the office lobby and on my computer– what greeted me are same stories and discussions about major, major blunders that put the Philippines in a bad global spot the last few days.

Blunder must have been an utterly undesirable word that Wikipedia, or popularly known as online encyclopedia, defined it as “a particularly bad mistake.” Sometimes in jest we refer to it as “wrong mistake.”

Redundantly so.

Last Monday the world witnessed blow-by-blow accounts of a hostage drama unfolding that led to an unnecessary and ghastly bloodbath involving innocent lives of foreign tourists from Hong Kong.

I could imagine several hours before the infamous hostage-taking incident, they could be hopping inside the bus with much enthusiasm about their tour itinerary on that day. But by turn of fate, many of them never made it to step out of the bus alive, while the rest who survived will have memories of unimaginable fear and trauma, horrifying ordeal and near-death experiences forever etched in their minds.

This was a major blunder everyone saw. A handling of crisis riddled with errors and mistakes, which the authorities unhesitatingly admitted.

On Tuesday, waking up to a new day but with the previous day’s horrors still lingering in mind, many of us pinned quite a deal of our hopes for some sort of redemption from bad image and a timely remedy for distressed spirits, to a possible capture of the Miss Universe crown.

Philippines’ bet Venus Raj impressed many including the judges, of her fantastic showing from pre-pageant events leading up to the big coronation night in Las Vegas.

As the say, when the going gets tough, the tough will surely get going. And rightly so, besting the rest of the beauties in the preliminaries, Raj made it to the magic five– a point in the competition where all five being equally beautiful, the one with the smartest answer takes the coveted crown.

Frustratingly to some, she bungled a crowning opportunity with her now famous “major, major problem” legacy lines (remember Melanie Marquez’s long-legged leg?). But she cannot be faulted. Everyone knows she did her very best, to achieve a feat Filipinos should be proud of.

Reacting to unfair criticisms, my good friend and former Red Horse beer buddy Louie shouted out in his FB account:

“is annoyed by people who kept on saying that Venus Raj blew her chances in the recent Miss Universe pageant…Kay ngano, beauty queen pud mo? Na-koronahan na mo? Naka apil na ba mo ug beauty contest? Do you know how hard it is to answer questions during a beauty pageant? Or guapa ba mo, to begin with, kay beauty contest man jud ni, dili quiz bee or debate?

Expectedly, it drew several checks, likes and ‘second the motion’ comments. But what impressed me is the comment made by former officemate Cris, whose wit has never failed to shine these years, said:

“when you raise your own bar of excellence, people outside you raise that bar much higher. the bar of expectations is always higher than the bar of excellence. but what really matters in the end, the matter that makes one sleep soundly at night is when he/she is convinced that she/he has done her very best!
Congratulations to Venus!”

We didn’t exactly get what we wished for, but in the end it was major, major enough to make us proud, and a major, major respite from Monday’s major, major blunder.

And now, let me go back to my major, major work!