harry12

Column: TALK TO HARRY
By Harry Tambuatco
Title: Give P-Noy time to date?

On the broadsheets was a report on Balsy Aquino Cruz requesting Filipinos to be sensitive to her brother allowing him room to date women …”he is a bachelor”. In big corporations, CEOs are screened and scrutinized before they are given the responsibility of management and in most cases with preference to married men with families. Why is this so? No one wants a heartbroken CEO. Do you remember your first heartache… having fallen in love and the world turns rosy yet simultaneously susceptible to darkness? We read of suicides and murders that are love driven. Surely you remember what drove you to marriage, if only to appease the situation, marriage being an option out of the misery one feels when abandoned. What I am trying to say is we are all vulnerable. Love is a power so strong few, very few can get a handle on. It can drive you crazy and do stupid things; irrational at times but consequential at the least. This does not mean married men no longer fall in love either and go “goo gaga” but at the very least they are grounded. Grounded with family and children and responsibilities, this is the reason we mandate CEOs to be before we allow them to rule. To find new love as to meeting ones soul mate is probably the most successful and opportune time of anyone’s life, but lets be real, this is at most times a fantasy and unless you find a hobby or work you can immerse yourself into, life can get boring, and yes even with financial success. Sports, yes a perfect alternative. Music, if only you are gifted. Art, if you have the eye for it. Money, well this can be dangerous… who was it that we iconized as a kleptomaniac in the 70’s?

So what to do with a bachelor? Yes, let us please give him the space… after all we Filipino’s are romantic and love the thought of people in love. We also enjoy a good cry (as to why? you tell me). But what if our president gets heartbroken and at the moment of crisis wherein we need the leader to guide us, what then? When you were heartbroken, could you function? Ah wait, yes there are those who are macho, and believe man is an island… is he? I find it strange dating is even a consideration at his stature after promoting he has decided to be leader of our democracy. Is there room for romance in our economy? Is there sense of love in the fight against corruption? We can only imagine heart break, introducing sensitivities of lonesomeness living in an environment of emptiness… you try living in the palace with guards and paparazzi broadcasting your every move. But what the heck, you decided to be our President. And now your sister asks we allow you time for love, and what? Allow vulnerability? With the country at stake? You tell me.

The popularity that the President enjoys in media is a saving grace. To be President and single has to be a challenge. He has three loving sisters but likewise have husbands and children to boot (well maybe not all). How long in the next six years are we to wait in case he is driven by love to anxiety. The heart knows no boundaries.

Mr. Tambuatco is Channel Director of the Global News Network