Mislang is not the face of the Filipino people

Mai Mislang was a nobody before her infamous Tweet on the state visit of PNoy in Hanoi recently.

Her sins? Her Tweets - "the wine served during dinner sucked, there are no good looking men in Vietnam, and the motorcycle laden streets of Vietnam being hazardous to life".

Of course, they were her personal opinions. But she is the Assistant Secretary for Communications, working for erstwhile ABS-CBN anchor Ricky Carandang who now heads this new office c/o PNoy. In short, during her official travel to Vietnam, Mislang was tweeting as a government official since she was there as part of the president's entourage. After her tweets, Mislang suddenly shot up to stardom.

And the rest is history.

People from all walks of life (including journalists) began their assault on the misdeeds of Mislang. Whether Malacanan touted her being a cum laude graduate of Mass Communications from UP, nobody cared. That part of the resume should just be burned. If I were her professors in UP, I probably would just cringe and roll over and die from embarrassment. So everyone began to ask for her head on a silver platter. Her demeanor was uncalled for. It was like PNoy had an amateur tag-along in his foreign trip that they needed to spank the baby upon their return to the Philippines.

But this blog is not going to repeat what the other columnists and bloggers have commented on Mislang's tweeting behaviour in Vietnam.

Let's just put some things in perspective.

For one, Mislang is like Kris A, the sister of PNoy. They open their mouths only to recant what they say or say sorry that they were misunderstood and needed to explain what they actually meant when what they said was supposed to mean another thing from what they were going to say. (Did you follow that?) And of course, being more controversial meant being more noticed (which explains why Kris A became so popular even if she had no talent).

Then of course came the various reasons from Malacanan about the tweets of Mislang. That the latter was sorry. That the latter had been reprimanded. That PNoy had full trust and confidence in her and was not going to fire her and that she was keeping her job. I am saddened by the fact that PNoy seems to have no balls in making a simple decision like this. If I were PNoy, I would talk to Carandang and quietly tell him to ask the girl to resign or just get rid of her in the most diplomatic way. And while I campaigned for PNoy for the upcoming elections, I was skeptical because he was practically a newbie and I was afraid that he wouldn't be able to make firmer decisions even on small matter like these. Getting rid of his shooting partner Puno of course is a different story because of Puno's own claim that they are BFF. But Mislang - who in the world is she? She's just one of his many speech writers and some obscure nobody in his back office. He doesn't have to save her hide for the Twitter-ing misdeeds in Hanoi.

Which goes to the final part of this short blog. If Mislang was truly apologetic, she should just resign. An irrevocable resignation. She should not have to bear the torture of having her whole person maligned and denigrated in print media or over the internet. She is not the face of the FIlipino people and I am ashamed at her deeds and actions.

And not all government officials in this country as childish as Mislang and my president. And PNoy should not feel bad about him being criticized as well because he had set expectations at the beginning of his term as president. If he is letting the people down by his incredulous decision-making which is making eyebrows raised all the way to heaven, it is because he had set the tone for this in his inaugural speech shout-out --- KAYO ANG BOSS KO!

Eh ganun naman pala eh. Eh tingnan niyo nga naman, parang asal katulong ko itong si PNoy. Sabi ni boss ganito, tigas ng ulo ni katulong. Ayaw talaga gawin. Akala niya, siya ang amo! Ang kapal talaga ng apog.