EDITORIAL - A common and very Filipino bad trait

The Melissa Mendez incident made the news only because it involved a celebrity, and also because once it hit social media, there was no way for it to be ignored. The incident involving Melissa happened on a Cebu Pacific flight from Manila to Pagadian. The actress reportedly sat on a seat assigned to somebody else. When the seat assignee, businessman Rey Pamaran, came to claim his seat, Melissa reportedly refused to give it up promptly.

According to Melissa, she needed the vantage position the seat afforded because she intended to take pictures of clouds as soon as the plane took off. This apparently started what turned out to be an ongoing exchange between the two. According to reports, Melissa eventually gave up the seat, but not before she allegedly hit Pamaran. As a result of the altercation, the plane turned back to Manila and Melissa had to be offloaded.

Melissa has since publicly apologized on her Instagram page but it appears that Pamaran is bent on pursuing charges against her for damages. And this ensures that the story will not yet see its end very soon. On the contrary, because Pamaran is apparently bent on taking it to the next level, the story will surely grace the news for quite some time to regale the public with its twists and turns.

But as said in the beginning, save for the fact that Melissa is a celebrity, incidents such as the one she is involved in are actually pretty common. They happen on almost every boat trip, where people who do not have cots assigned to them occupy unattended cots on the off chance they have no assignees. Sometimes there are two passengers assigned to the same accommodation.

Boat incidents are far more frequent than those that may happen on planes. But from time to time they do occur, such as the one involving Melissa, although in her case it is not for reasons of her actually wanting to occupy the seat that is not hers. Nevertheless, these occurrences, whether on boats or planes, are probably very uniquely Filipino.

Not that we can speak for other countries. Such occurrences do probably happen everywhere. But we can speak with confidence about the Philippines because we see them happen everyday. There is something in the Filipino traveler that makes him take his chances with accommodations at the last minute, despite modernization of travel practices, where booking outlets are everywhere and there are even online bookings.

It is a very common occurrence for a passenger to get the fright of his life when, on finally finding his assigned accommodations, he discovers another person already making himself comfortable there. The most annoying thing is when the rightful owner has to awaken the usurper because he had fallen asleep. This is as Filipino a bad trait as is breaking the line at queues. Filipinos are very notorious for rushing the line even if there's a seat for everyone. Or is there?