IN FAIRNESS

Well actually, one of the fun things about working in the Home Office is, kum baga, the fairly steady stream of celebrities who pass by to apply for passports / promote some activity / raise troop morale

Bale kasi, I’m a busy man, kum baga, so I can’t always get up whenever a celebrity is around, 'di ba. And sometimes I like sulking/acting like a snob when they're around because, wala lang, I don’t approve of their current loveteam or the last kontrabida role they played, 'noh.

But many other times, kum baga, I don’t get all excited because - for the life of me - I don’t know who some of them are.

Take last Thursday. I’m delivering some papers to the department’s media office (whistling "I Am Your Brother") when, as I round the corner, I run smack into the middle of this strange scene…

I learn later it’s a local comedian called "Mang Enriquez" whose main shtick is impersonating a popular news anchor. But my first reaction was "this is the weirdest press briefing, ever."

And then we occasionally have the…ahem…objectively attractive visitor who I don’t recognize.

Oh, who am I kidding? Of course I know who she is! Everyone knows all of them in the genre! But I can’t let the LLDDL know that! Otherwise, I would always be like "So, this…um…Viva Hotbabe was at the office today. But she wasn’t pretty! She wasn’t pretty AT ALL! Not that I was looking. For long. And hindi s’ya mabait masyado. She was medyo maarte and. . . . . I know, I know. I’ll be watching Iron Man alone."

Finally, there were the stars of an (apparently) wildly popular Koreanovela I’ve never seen …

Jewel in the Sky? Jewel in the Palace? Palace in the Sky? Palace at Auburn Hills? Palasyo Gobernador? Dadalhin Kita sa Akin Palasyo? I’ve honestly never watched these actors or their show before. But, MAN, did they nearly cause a stampede! It was actually a pretty funny scene: their official function was going to be held in the room next to mine and, in an amazing coincidence, half the Home Office suddenly had documents to submit / people to meet / things to follow up in my work area at the exact same time! What are the odds?! And when the formal activity came to a close, it became every fan for himself; Undersecretaries were literally shoved out of the way by staff members, office promotions be damned.

The actors, for their part, kept their composure and gamely posed with every cellphone-cam armed fan. Everyone was actually quite nice through it all.

In fairness.