Siftings
An Open Letter to: The Ex-pat Files
Dear Mr. Scott Garceau:
I take the strongest objection to the subject of your column “The X-Pat Files” in the Philippine Star (Sunday, January 17, 2010) entitled “Senior Moments.” For a vaunted journalist of your caliber, Mr. Garceau, that entry was one of your senior moments, if that is supposed to mean a lapse in memory – or something else in your case, like good manners and right conduct, or even the virtue of piety, which means simply, respect for your elders. Maybe the elders in question do not deserve your respect, because they are Filipinos, which you are not? Because the product of your pen was pure S-M-U-T, from your alien pen directed at the over-65 citizens of this country you pretend to adopt by virtue of marriage to a Filipina.
You’re not being fair, Mr. Garceau, in concluding that every 65-year old and above retiree of this country is “picky, cantankerous and downright ornery because not all of them are like that. I will have you know that a group of retirees called Gintong Samahan ng UP Visayas are proudly nationalistic, law-abiding citizens of this country who know how to use their discount card – properly, wisely, with dignity. We do not engage in harassing restaurant-owners with unreasonable demands, that lady in your column who demanded the near-impossible regarding her steak is probably mentally-disabled, like the second lady in your vignette who wanted a discount on her “mentally-disabled card.”. Such disabilities surface or get worse as age advances, which you very well know. The ladies in question need help, from their families and professional people. Senility is a problem when you have it. But think how much worse Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases are, especially if you are over 70 and your time in the pre-departure area gets shorter with each passing year.
By the way, Mr. Garceau. Are you a restaurant owner yourself? Why do you get your blood pressure up over these little peccadilloes of senior citizens trying to get their grandchildren and friends a free lunch or dinner at your resto? How come you have such intimate knowledge and insight into the resto biznes’s not-so-pleasant rencontre vis-a-vis Filipino senior citizens? Is this ire or bile directed at Filipino senior citizens only?
Don’t you realize, Mr. G., that your resto’s profit-oriented scheme – along with innumerable profit-oriented schemes of this predominantly capitalistic world (thanks mostly to the capitalistic hegemony of the country of your birth) with their individual focus on the material value of everything a human being wants to possess (houses, vehicles, lands, real estate, jewelry, etc., etc. ) can, and is showing signs of, literally blowing up this world we live in, to kingdom come, what with global economic recession in tandem with global warming and the relentless depletion of natural and human resources? You are the bright boy, Mr. G., you ought to know all the answers!
You’re not just being unfair, you’re also mist-blind and hard of hearing from listening to resto owners’ complaints and downright lacking in understanding and simple compassion. You can’t see that senior citizens want to enjoy their discount cards because it reminds them, as no other thing can remind them, that they can still be accounted for in this world, that they still count in the ordinary scheme of things, that they are still important players in the stage play of life! It’s like, See this card, boy? It says here I am being rewarded for having played my part in life when I was strong and able and productive – paying my taxes, bringing up my children properly to be good citizens who will pay taxes in their turn, and I’ve earned my keep, so to speak. I’ve long paid my dues, and now’s the time I get some of it back, with or without interest.
Man oh man, Mr. G. I await with fierce anticipation the day you get to be a senior citizen and get shuffled off to some Home for the Aged in your country. With your own discount card. Minus your full set of teeth, with blurry eyes, steps faltering, voice hardly audible in its rasping and whizzing to get attention for your proper and lawful discount on a hamburger sandwich and iced tea, in this country or elsewhere. As of now you can hardly see that as a possibility given the vivid colors of your present state of life care of your dollars at the present rate of exchange. But wait till you get to be 65, then 75, then 85... ad infinitum. Who knows but that, by that time, Senior Citizen Discount Cards will be a thing of the past, and I won’t be surprised if the Law of Karma recoils and marks you out for the Revenge of the Jedi. But then, again, maybe they’ll put all the old people in a chamber and gas them by the thousands to get rid of the discount problem. As per your recommendation?
How about that for a really macabre future, Mr. G.? Or should you go back tom your own country before that happens? As of today, the 20th day of January, 2010, there is a move in the Senate to take off the 12% VAT on Senior Citizens” Discount Cards. Tough luck for you if it gets passed. Mud in your eye, Mr. G.
