Oh yes, it’s as macho as it sounds. And that’s also what informs the anti-Claudine rhetoric that’s on the interwebs, i.e., Twitter and Facebook. So in a fistfight that began between two men, the backlash has been on the one woman in the story; and while it’s been fascinating watching Raymart and Mon Tulfo going at it on television, the backlash has been more strongly against the woman.
That this woman is Claudine is precisely the point, if we are to look at how even the more intelligent among us have cloaked their judgments of her by mentioning – even if only based on rumors – the bigger controversies that have hounded her in the past. And then we blame her for everything because she was angry that her posse’s luggage was put on another flight to Manila; we blame her even as all we’ve got is the story that she had raised her voice at Cebu Pacific’s ground crew.
Now I don’t know about you, but I’d be angry too – there is nothing like inefficient service to let thetaray kick in. At the same time, I know I’d be handling my anger differently from the next person. I know that not much is achieved by going the file-a-formal-complaint route, at least not on these shores. This is the way a company like Cebu Pacific survives despite customer complaints: how many of us will find the time to do it formally, which is really the only complaint that matters.