Accents
Again: "I'm leaving on a jet plane…"
Again, I sing with John Denver as you read this, changing his words as I please: The time has come for me to leave… I dream of the days to come, playing with the cutest granddaughter in the world, any grandmother would love to say… Yes, I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again… But every word I write, I'll write for you…
Yes, dear readers, the beloved e-mail will carry my words across eons of time and space, and when you hold this paper, I am there only a page away even if I did leave on a jet plane and on wings of a song to the heartland of America.
The disabilities of senior citizens have taken their toll on my traveling companion, who else but the hubby, he with the ubiquitous cane. Arthritis and diabetes forced us to buy PAL Business Class to savor all the comforts that somehow eased the hassle of travel. We were constrained to bid goodbye to hard-earned savings to upgrade the coach tickets provided us by our daughters.
Like other airline industry in the country, PAL or Philippine Airlines, touted as the first airline in Asia, has a marked advantage over foreign airlines: the flight attendants' fluency in the English language. In the course of our travels abroad, we experienced difficulty getting assistance from foreign stewards whereas with our attending kababayans, communication was smooth.
The food that PAL served was gourmet—choice international cuisine. By choosing Filipino in the menu, Rudy and I enjoyed once more the incomparable boneless bangus, the national fish with the thick belly fat. Among the sterling utensils and Dresden China spread on immaculate linen, the plastic knives looked most incongruous (One is prone to ask what a silvery table knife can do to sabotage a plane flight. Let your imagination run wild.)
If the food was excellent, more so was the service. We take our hats off to the trio assigned to our cabin: Melissa Lucero, Katrina Chikiamco, and Nino Paul Cruz. Courteous, solicitous, gentle—what else can I say but "Thank you very much. You are the pride of your company."
I recall sending a most-deserved "Thank you" letter to PAL in 2002 when our grandkids Jetrone and Raisa had a taste of the "American Pie" (Disney World in Florida, the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Universal Studios and Hollywood in Los Angeles) — a reward from their aunts: Jetrone for making it to the Phil. Science High School, Raisa for finishing elementary. PAL didn't fail us in assisting the kids all the way from the start of their flight at the Iloilo Airport when they were made to wear big I.D. pins to make all of PAL know that they were unaccompanied minors, hence to be duly assisted.
Human frailties do surface in the nitty-gritty of earning a living. There are flight attendants who, deficient in the human touch, regard passengers as non-entities merely to be served perfunctorily and done away with. And there are also passengers who are too demanding for comfort. For instance, take this particular "Joe" during our latest flight. A tall hulk of a foreigner, he complained that the sleeping gear (the chair that transforms to a bed) did not come up to the quality he had paid for. I did not even hear the fellow utter the magic word (PLEASE) as he spoke to the attendants. All the while, the cabin crew remained their gracious selves, the loud complaint notwithstanding. Gush, we shouldn't let those aliens from the not-so-outer space run us down Pinoys. (My apologies to foreigners who are bred in basic courtesies.)
Count on me to sing praises when a Filipino does a fellow Filipino or foreigner a good turn. Count on me, too, to decry a display of arrogance and uncalled for demands wherever they come from.
(E-mail: lagoc@hargray.com)