Rich Man, Poor Man

Nevermind the aesthetics of it, but that full page debutante ad that came out in all the major dailies recently prompted a foreign visitor to comment, "I thought times are hard and people are poor. This sure doesn’t look poor to me."

It was kind of hard to explain to her that this was just one rather isolated instance: one debutante, one party. That millions of other debutantes pass into womanhood with minimal or no fanfare.

But one can start wondering about poverty and the Philippine situation when one considers certain phenomena. High-end luxury brands–Vuitton, Charriol, Escada, Hugo Boss, Ralph Lauren, Ferragamo, Bally, etc.–have set up shop in Manila, and are apparently doing very good business. Brands that do not have their own boutiques are still selling well in stores: P25,000 for a pair of Manolo Blahniks is all in a day’s shopping for some, and it’s not unheard of (or unreported in the society gossip columns) for a woman to go home with four pairs in one outing.

The four BMW dealers in the country seem to have no problem meeting their monthly sales quota of 30 vehicles each; that’s 120 BMWs sold every month. BMWs on the road have become so ubiquitous heads no longer turn when one whizzes by, except perhaps if it is the new 7-series. There are also enough Ferraris and Porsches around town for the owners to form a loose Sunday morning club.

In the less rarified world of non-designer and lower end consumer spending, restaurants–even the fine dining ones–are doing such brisk business that more and more new ones are opening every week. The week-end sales at malls still draw in the crowds. Cellphones are still selling better than hotcakes.

Are we a poor people pretending to be rich, or are we really a rich people pleading poverty? One answer is that the few who are rich are getting richer–and they’re spending what is, after all, their money; and the poor...well, they make do.

Reacting to my shock over a recent gossip column item about a matron who went home with four pairs of Blahniks–that’s a cool P100,000 or so–my friend pointedly reminded me, "Just because you and I do not have that kind of money to throw around does not mean that other people are similarly financially challenged."

What was that line from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby"? The rich are not like you and me.