HERE’S a hard habit to break that should be broken already. You meet someone who happens to mention that he’s from, say, Cagayan de Oro, and that prompts you to tell him, Wow! You know so-and-so? He’s also a Cagayanon!
It doesn’t matter if so-and-so lives in Besigan, and this new acquaintance lives in Bugo. That’s a 49.6-kilometer distance which translates to about an hour and a half of driving on a good day. Unaware of these details, your mind says, They’re both from CDO, therefore, they know each other.
But the new acquaintance is saying, Nope, no idea who he is.
You: He’s rich, he has a mansion on a hill, in fact he owns that hill.
New acquaintance: Don’t know him.
You: He travels around CDO in his own chopper. He has helipads.
New acquaintance: Never met him.
Third time’s a charm, so, you get it now: he doesn’t know the chopper-flying guy.
But the truth is they do know each other. Chopper flyer happens to be his major business rival. And this guy you’re currently talking with is actually much richer: he owns a plane aside from a chopper. His keeping-up-with-the-Joneses competition with the chopper flyer has made both of them reach for the sky.
So, next time you meet someone from a certain place where you happen to know someone, please refrain from asking if he knows the people you know. They could be mortal enemies, and you will now become their mutual mortal enemy for being nosy.
But if they’re merely major political rivals, you’re kind of safe. Operative words: kind of. Three years from now, they may end up as friends if they will unite for CDO’s brighter future and all that jazz. In the next election three years later they will be rivals again, three years after that friends again, three years thereafter rivals again, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
So, timing is required in political name-dropping. If they’re friends now, you’re safe. If they threw imaginary missiles at each other in the last election, the safe is where you hide your illgotten wealth. Oops.
Politics is so fickle. Only Anna Wintour can stay consistent for 30 years as Vogue editor-in-chief. She has even stayed true to an image that has never changed — bob and bangs, dark sunglasses, slim physique, and a character that made Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada” pale in comparison. Priestly, a role played by Meryl Streep, was supposed to be based on Wintour.
Uh, wait, Wintour is retiring as Vogue EIC after 30 years — a phenomenon I never expected to happen. Presidents, vice presidents, senators, congressmen, governors, mayors, vice mayors, councilors may come and go, but Wintour is irreplaceable, she should be Vogue EIC forevermore. Wintour and Vogue are twins. No one else can copy her image, not even perennial Oscar winner Streep.
I guess only the legacy of a dictatorship and the political dynasty it has created can last forevermore. Let that be a hint to political newbies.
