Racism at Clark

NOW IT is being told.
Already storied if not historied was the utter devastation of the British Hitman Hatton by the Filipino Everyman Pacquiao in Las Vegas in the morning of May 3.
But long before Hatton hit the canvass like a bludgeoned carcass, the British had already knocked the Filipino out of his senses in the totally different arena that was the London Pub at the Clark Freeport. And there was even no need for Manchester United’s hooligans to do the stomping and trampling of Filipino pride right in its own turf.
Here’s the account of a number of our Clark sources.
London Pub – can any place be more bloody Brit than that? – right at the Mimosa Leisure Estate, was the setting for one of those pay-per-view spots for the Pacquiao-Hatton fight. It was made exclusive though to the bosses, employees and guests of Peregrine Development International, a company doing some major contract work at the Global Gateway Logistic Hub at the Clark aviation complex.
Among the invited guests – on an RSVP arrangement, at that – were top honchos of the Clark Development Corp. and the Clark International Airport Corp. along with investors and locators, both foreign and local.
As the telecast started early morn, there was free breakfast for the guests. Ay, there right at the breakfast table was where the British uppercut knocked down the Pinoy senseless.
At the U-shape buffet, one side – with nothing but pan de sal and pan Americano and some assortment of spread as butter, marmalade, jams and jellies—was marked “For Filipinos” The other side marked “For Expats” was groaning under the weight of all sorts of food for a heavy meal: from meat and poultry to pastries and cakes, virtual ambrosia.
So what’s wrong with that? Nothing with the tagging per se. Everything with the mutual exclusivity of the setting.
When Filipinos tried to get to the “For Expats” side, they were told – upper-lipped stiffly now – to please stay at their side of the buffet. Which a number of Filipino guests meekly obeyed.
It took one CDC fellow and his wife to raise a howl of protest over the patent racism being inflicted upon Filipinos right in their own country. It was still so kind of him and the wife to just return their plates to their rack before getting out of the London Pub. Were I in his place, I would have smashed everything there, not excluding the faces of all those that had anything to do with London Pub.
So the people of Peregrine tore those breakfast place names to bits after the CDC fellow made his exit. So they have made profuse apologies to him and all who were offended. So what? A grave harm has been done. The Filipino was damned in his own country.
So what is the CDC doing about it? Just grinning and bearing this racist slur? Afraid that the slightest inquiry would hurt the sensitivity of the owners of London Pub and make them leave Clark? Have we no sense of nationalism left at CDC?
It makes me sick to my bones to hear that one CDC manager at London Pub ate his Filipino breakfast with much gusto, not the least aware of the insult impugned on his race. Why, he was even said to be profuse in his gratitude to the hosts at London Pub for having won some pricey television set at the post-fight raffle! By his actions, this character is a disgrace to the national hero he claims kinship to. Shame.
An international incident was raised when the Hong Kong writer with the name that sounded like “Cheap Luck” tagged the Filipino people as a “nation of servants.”
Not even a whimper is heard over this clear case of racism, nay, of apartheid at London Pub. In case you have forgotten, apartheid was the policy of racial segregation perpetrated by the government of white South Africa whereby colored people along with dogs could not set foot on enclaves of the whites. It sparked a series of popular uprisings and ended with the multi-racial democratic elections in 1994, which led to the ascendancy to the presidency of Nelson Mandela that put a definitive finis to white rule in South Africa.
Yeah, the White Trash finally segregated from the natural beauty of Black Africa there. Only to rear its ugly head anew here at Clark.
Yeah, Clark: The Next Frontier… of Racism.