Taking Presumptions

Appearances deceive. One can insist that a person matters more than what he wears, but in a world of strangers, it takes a dress to approximate how one would be initially treated.

Think of a man of the cloth, with a clerical collar and a small cross pin, beside a shabbily dressed chap with uncombed hair. Let’s say both have business with a frontline female bureaucrat scowling like she’s on rapid descent to menopause, like those tourism department travel tax collectors at the Mactan International Airport.

I bet my million centavos the man of the cloth will be dealt with more courteously. Let’s just add here, both for hypothesis’ sake and to thicken the plot, that the man of the cloth is actually a disguised terrorist while the shabbily dressed guy is the country’s best secret agent.Presumptions about people and situations can go beyond appearances as well. One’s job counts. A good job with a known good pay invites presumption that one has money to spare. I work, therefore I am.

Talk about jobs and presumptions, and I’ll always hark back to that diplomat whose statement of assets and liabilities cost him undue attention. While some are investigated for unexplained wealth, he was unique in that he was investigated for unexplained poverty.

Personal attitude, self-regard, and even delusion also spell presumptions. Thus did I come face to face with presumptions once again. Never mind having been subjected many times to the usual presumption that housewives are know-nothings. I’ve learned to live and laugh with that.

My kid sister and I were sitting on the grass one evening beside the Dubai Creek for a respite in the outside world, watching our little girl cartwheel and run wild, freedom written all over her laughing face. The two are still adjusting to an indoor lifestyle where going out for a block’s walk is a treat. When they became cantankerous, I understood that it was time to breathe the evening desert air.

Along came this smiling lady with two small boys. Kabayan? Yung alaga n’yo, Filipino ba rin? (Fellow national? Your ward, is she also Filipino?) She asked.

She volunteered personal information. She’s a teacher in Zambales. She arrived just a month earlier with her two pre-schooler sons. Her husband had been in Dubai for two years. That explained her oozing confidence.

Not all OFWs here can afford to have their families. It takes a certain pay, mostly reserved for successful professionals, to be able to afford a flat to accommodate one’s family. Otherwise, one settles as a bedspacer.

Some choose to save on rent, so it’s not unusual for three families to divide a three-bedroom flat’s rent three ways; one family to a room with the kitchen, restroom, and living and dining rooms as the common areas.

As to that lady in the grass, we volunteered no personal information. At least she’s not abrasive, my kid sister said softly as we listened to her, but why doesn’t she speak English? That, too, was another presumption. We spoke English thinking she’s teacher enough to speak as much. Besides, my sister may be a superb English speaker, but her Tagalog is atrocious. Suffice it to say that the trend of that lady’s questions showed her presumption that we were employed nannies.

My all-time favorite presumption though was about a lady ambassador who crossed paths with a lady kabayan in a department store in Rome. Friendly at best and a monger at worst, the kabayan told the ambassador that it was good that she was allowed by her employer to go out. When the ambassador issued a check for her purchases, the kabayan finished her off. Uy, pa-tseke-tseke ka pa ngayon, ha! (Hey, so now you even dare issue checks, hah!)

That particular lady ambassador happens to be capable of pulling rank, no matter who got hurt. In that instance though, she let the other lady’s presumptions be; that like her, the ambassador was also a household employee.

I would raise hell over presumptions only if it involves a case of mistaken identity and I end up landing in jail. Save for the extent of one’s personal delusions, presumptions can be good levelers. They that cannot kill cannot diminish.