There’s Something About Edgar
By A.M.B. Apalisok How people and events are perceived, rightly or wrongly, can spell the difference between a cad and a gentleman or a lady and a virago.
In politics, perception is everything. A politician courts voters and slogs it out on the campaign trail to convince people that he is worth their trust, well aware that he cannot be loved by all. In simple terms, more than organizational ability and endless patience, a politician works hard to get a job.
I never voted for Congressman Edgar Chatto. Which is to say that not only am I not a registered voter in Bohol, I’m also not one of those who have directly put him in office. So I regard him not in personal terms but at a distance, as a vaguely familiar Boholano.
Edgar and his wife dropped by Dubai on their way to Iran for an official conference. Coordination of his office with the labor department and its office in Dubai ended with coordination with the consulate and the husband.
The request was for a reservation in a hotel that won’t cost more than a certain amount, and a ride from the airport to the hotel. It wasn’t much of a request. A closer look though speaks of the man.
The grapevine sighs of some government functionaries whose visits to foreign cities entail bookings in hotels with preposterous accommodations, with bills left behind for others to pick up. Never mind their shopping wives who expect royal treatment.
The husband is authorized to go beyond the immigration security gates of the Dubai airport, so it was for him to meet the couple. Unfortunately, he was to join the diplomatic corps in the invitational iftar, the Ramadan fast-breaking feast, of one of the emirs at a place that was a good distance from Dubai on the night the couple were arriving.
He’d play it by instinct because he had seen Edgar only twice, the husband said, though it’s not as if he knows on sight everyone he officially meets. He added that his schedule was tight but he hoped to make it back in time. I don’t want you risking a 150kph trip on the highway to make it in time, I said flatly.
Arrangements have been made in case I’ll be late, he assured, but they’ll have to wait for the couple outside the terminal. “Hey,†he added as if I’ve forgotten it, “he’s a government official in our country; he’s our congressman. He’s your congressman.â€
He made it, and from his story when he came home at past midnight, Edgar’s apologies were disarming. He didn’t want to bother anyone but that was his first time in Dubai. He refused the offer to use the consular car for a look-see of the city, but spent a few hours sightseeing anyway, and paid for a rental car.
A breakfast meeting about Filipino workers in Dubai with some labor representatives, at Edgar’s invitation, made the husband conclude that Edgar knows his job; he asked the right questions and took down notes. He also opted for the hotel car service to the airport the next day. He’s considerate, was the most that the husband could say.
I imagined the apprehension of the couple when there was a security alert on their pre-flight to Iran the next day. The passengers were asked to deplane and the flight was delayed by four hours. A call from the overseas labor office here apprised the husband of the situation and how Edgar had been trying to contact him.
It must have been the Boholana in me. In that Friday holiday during Ramadan in an Islamic country where everything seems to stand still, I took to helping the husband dial the couple’s numbers from different mobile phones, to no avail.
Are they safe? I kept asking the husband who really couldn’t answer. He asked a consulate member to man the communications room and try his best to contact our Iran embassy. It was the most that could be done for our legislator who didn’t come like a brat demanding to be treated like a messiah.
I still couldn’t vote for Edgar. There’s just this side of him that no press release from his office can reveal. His voters may as well know. Bohol is fortunate that Edgar need not be invented.
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