SOMETIME back I said this in my Feb. 22, 2021 column:
And speaking of “trying to be clever” not-well-thought-of statements coming from Rabiya Mateo, it all seems stage-managed as if her handlers have been feeding her their political agenda and using her as their mouthpiece, taking advantage of her new found popularity.
A quick check of her education, political leanings or affiliation and awareness shows that she attended and graduated from Iloilo Doctors’ College as Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy and was working in SRG Manila Review Center as a lecturer and review coordinator before winning the Miss Universe Philippines crown.
As you can see, she is not a “woke” who just woke up as her handlers are now trying to make her appear to be. Her education and employment is not the classic “woke” way to political enlightenment.
If she was an alumna of the University of the Philippines and a Mass Communications or Political Science graduate, I would understand, in fact expect, her to be doing this. But she came from a school hardly known for any political leanings and she studied to be a physical therapist, not a political activist.
Here is some piece of unsolicited advice to Rabiya Mateo: My dear, you already won as Miss Philippines Universe and all set to represent the country in the Miss Universe contest. Just focus on that. You certainly do not need to be controversial and be talked about on something that you are not.
And why this might interest you, earlier this year a dear cousin, a frontliner in New York, succumb to COVID-19 performing her calling as nurse, and that prompted a regular prayer wake on Zoom from all of us surviving relatives, which eventually led to a family reunion of all relatives on my mother’s side – on Zoom of course.
One relative who joined those Zoom sessions was Christine Mateo who turned out to be the mother of current Miss Universe Philippines Rabiya Mateo.
From Christine Mateo and other cousins, we learned that the great grandmother of Rabiya was a sister of our or my grandmother, making my mother and her grandmother as first cousins and her mother and Moi second cousins in turn, making her as my niece.
Interesting and quite a surprise although I’m not really taken aback as I’ve met her grandmother during family get-togethers, usually funerals or weddings back when I was still a schoolboy.
I have never met Rabiya and probably never will, and it does not really matter if she wins or not as I’m not too keen on these beauty contests anyway. I suppose all I can do is wish her well.
Of course, it didn’t change anything what I’ve previously said in my column about those political statements supposedly coming from Rabiya Mateo. It all seems orchestrated to make her appear as some kind of empowered feminist.
These beauty contests are the exact opposite of being an empowered woman. In fact, an oxymoron. Why does one need the approval of judges, mostly males, that one is beautiful? Being beautiful is how one feels, what one does and, of course, your genes, not what other people say you are. As I said, being a beauty pageant contestant and being empowered are two opposite things.
You can be beautiful and empowered without joining any of these useless beauty contests i.e. all the uniformed female members of the Armed Forces are beautiful and empowered. World-class tennis player Alex Eala is beautiful and empowered. So, too, for Ilongga national track and field athlete Alexi Mae Brooks. Likewise for international volleyball player Jaja Santiago. Michel Gumabao was already beautiful and empowered as a professional volleyball player and a member of the Philippine Women’s Volleyball team; she degraded herself when she joined beauty contests.
I have no comment on whether Iloilo City’s Rep. Julienne Baronda and Vice President Leni Robredo are also beautiful and empowered or not.
Karl Marx once said that “religion is the opium of the people.” If he were around today perhaps he might have added, “so too with beauty contests.”
And to borrow the line of thinking of the usual suspects, wokes, “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon”, pseudo communists and opportunistic politicians, the money spent for these beauty contests should be spent to buy vaccines and the de rigueur rice for the pathetic poor. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com)/PN
