Alpha dogs of the year

It wasn’t for the usual last-minute Christmas shopping that I stepped into Podium last Monday, but to settle a couple of Smart Addict bills, mine and a son’s, which had suffered billing-cycle glitches on account of a supposed systems upgrade.

Shhh. It happens. Just like how road repair crews choose the Yuletide season to add to traffic woes, or how half the cashiers in a supermarket take a meal break just when the queues reach close to a tipping point of consumers’ rights protest.

Yet it turned out fortuitous. I could hardly make my way out of the escalator to the second floor because a throng stood or jostled along the way, while chamber orchestra music pervaded the air. There was a classy happening.

Thinking it was a musical presentation or an art exhibit opening, I raised myself on tiptoes, helped along by the easy comfort provided by a pair of Sanuks that had been a gift from an upcoming lady poet.

Such is life: an hour ago I’m despairing of when the darned silly luck would ever turn, and now I’m on Cloud 9. And from that vantage, I espy ... hmm, a book launching — a grand one, it must be assumed, what with a crowd busily ascending the dais for autographs, and all around, apparent fat cats attired randomly if formally, in exquisite barong Tagalogs and Italian suits. One particular group looked much like a collection of alpha males.

Then I recognize the central personage behind a table set onstage. Why, it’s “Manong” Joe de V., erstwhile top dog of a powerful if controversial assembly. Oh yes, he was grinning from ear to taxicab-door ear as he signed away copy after copy of a volume titled Global Filipino: The Authorized Biography of Jose de Venecia, Jr., the Visionary Five-Time Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Philippines.

Whew. Oh, and it’s written by an American journalist with the byline Brett Decker, and ostensibly published by a foreign imprint.

I only got to gawk all-too-briefly before I proceeded to an upper floor to conduct my business. But on the way back down, I had to stop by the National Book Store to pick up my own set of signing pens (Dong-A MyGel .07 point, black) as well as gift tags and wrappers.

Tidbits of loud exchanges attended my tight portage through the political convention. Erap had been around, and so had Tita Cory, who even apologized (to him?) for her support for EDSA 2, which she now regrets. FVR was still among the crowd, someone else piped in. No, he wasn’t, countered another. If he were, a third beer-belly thundered, that makes three ex-presidents attending a book launch. “Iba talaga si Manong Joe!”

I couldn’t help but nod in passerby acknowledgment. Why, when the aforementioned lady poet had launched her own first book weeks ago, over at Fully Booked on Boni High Street, it was already seen as a highly successful affair, since over a hundred groupies were on hand. Now, this crowd must’ve numbered over 500 at any one time, with a fast turnover still in progress.

Outside, around one of Dome’s sidewalk tables, a smoking crew of journalists in coats and ties registered another insight: that even among the Fourth Estate, there was an evident gamut of alpha dogs. That set off an additional opinion: Should Manny Pacquiao ever launch his memoirs, how large a venue would be needed?

Speaking of whom, aye, there’s the primus inter pares of alpha dogs for the year. He’s no less than top gun, brimming with testosterone and of almost brutal efficiency in dispatching of an erstwhile Golden Boy who must now slide over to omega land.  

LeBron James, there’s another premier alpha dog, the way it’s looking to be his NBA season as MVP, ring-rattler and first-time ring-catcher. In a league of gold-medal Olympians such as peers Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul, The Chosen One that is LBJ looks to lead the Cleveland Cavaliers, where’s he’s decidedly the go-to alpha dog, all the way to the Promised Land.

French premier Nicolas Sarkozy, oui, oui! Alpha dog extraordinaire, landing voluptuous model and now pop singer Carla Bruni for a First Lady. Russian President Vladimir Putin, alpha dog with a terrier’s eyes!

Barack Obama, him too, but natch! Hurdling over one challenge after another, fueled by guts as much as a sensed pact with faith, and with the eloquence of a revivalist for change, yes he could and he can and he did, skipping elegantly over alpha female Hillary and a war-scarred McCain.

Back to our own political landscape, new Speaker Prospero Nograles is alpha dog for the nonce, with tail wagging to Palace bark, according to some. We’ll never know, as top draws hold cards close to their chests when they’re not thumping and harrumphing.

But it doesn’t mean that any unseating decreases one’s stature as top draw, as the De Venecia book launch proved. And father and son can both be alpha dogs, if now moon-baying together after young Joey blew the whistle.

JPE or Manong Johnny, him too, now the wizened alpha wielder of the Senate gavel. But the fellow he replaced, Manny Villar, remains alpha dog for a constituency that has placed him fourth on a presidentiables’ survey list. Count in poll leader Noli Boy a.k.a. Da Veep, whose “Magandang gabi, bayan!” has long since installed him as the alpha baritone to beat.

The young Chiz Escudero, fluent from the get-go, and go-getter as young-Turk oppositionist, carries alpha-male genes that have catapulted him fast to No. 3. Pit-bull determination, as this generation’s Mr. Exposé, has also marked out Ping Lacson as alpha dawg. And Mar Roxas’ recent sally into prole-type vituperation gives him alpha cachet, with a capital “K” no less.

Having regained the luxury of freedom, former Prez Estrada is back to being an alpha dog as both direct threat and kingmaker. Danding Cojuangco the quiet one is to the manner born; iba na’ng may pinagsamahan at maraming pulutan.

Do we hear that our Christmas-crazy country is going to the dogs? Not on your life. Our youth team just topped China in a basketball prelim tourney, so what better way to follow up the Pacman’s underdog upset than to gift hoops freaks all over the islands with a regional crown?

And they did it under Serbian coach Rajko Toroman, an international winner — which is more than we can ever hope to say for a putative all-PBA national team under Ultra-nationalist coach Yeng Guiao, whose tough rep makes much of his perennial protest against the hiring of foreign coaches. Yet Toroman comes up with a quick title while Guiao’s Red Bull Barako languishes in the bottom of a conference. What does that say but that ex-PBA chief Noli Eala and the annual MVP who is Manny V. Pangilinan are alpha dogs with foresight and night vision?!

Oh, it’s a mucho macho world all right. Thank goodness we can still utter — amidst all the bragging-rights chest-thumping around us — some token of self-deprecatory pre-positioning within a masculine matrix.        

Such as: Oh well, my carbon footprint is smaller than yours.