Excuse me, your slip-pers are showing

President Gloria in slippers! And tongues started wagging. So she wore slippers to the market, what’s the big deal. So she doled out land titles, even sang a song with femme fatale Rosanna Roces. So by her own admission she took four days to learn the lyrics and five days to rehearse. Big deal! Yeah, seemed so with her song hits in tow.

Was it Dante Ang pushing the idea of "I am not who you think I am... I am who I am." (A feminist statement right out of Virginia Slims.) Again, no big deal.

I thought it was simply a woman thing. Pretty human. Pretty practical. Pretty no big deal. Even for somebody who just happens to be President.

Was it a way to connect with the marketfolks of Commonwealth? Was it a way to do an Erap or a Magsaysay? I don’t think so. Market vendors wear jewelry, some own cars, a good number of them send their kids to college... and, oh yes, some of them wear shoes... and slippers, too!

So what’s wrong with President Gloria wearing slippers to the market? It is the most practical thing to do considering that market floors are slippery and wet.

And hey, slippers can be, and are a fashion statement. Especially when the occasion, a woman’s bearing and comfort guide a woman’s feel for dressing. There are plain slippers, colored ones, glamorized thongs. Some come flowered, or sequined. Some come flat-soled, others heeled. They are best worn with slacks, jeans, pedal pushers and even wrap-arounds. For the love of comfort and chic-ness I believe in the idea of "letting go," of relaxed feet and toes freely curling.

Sometimes a woman wakes up and thinks "I’m too lazy to get out of bed, lazy to dress up, lazy to do anything." Other times she’ll open her closet and say, "I don’t have anything to wear," even if a closetful of clothes is staring her in the face.

Maybe it’s the same thing with a President. Maybe there is days when she wakes up and says, "I don’t feel like dressing like a President today. I just want to be me today." After all it is not a pair of Ferragamos that a good President make.

And so on that fateful day, her instinct made her take out from her closet, a casual pair of beige pants that we’ve not seen her wear before. And going with her mood for the moment, paired it off with the now famous slippers. Very much like fashion models, preppy teeners and some housewives do. Haven’t we seen all these in Vogue, Bazaar, Mega and Preview?

My daughter China went to Mass wearing her pink Kamiseta Japanese slippers to go with her white jeans with shredded hems. I was aghast at first... slippers at Mass! And then I saw someone in shorts and slip-ons. I saw blue jeans, a mini skirt, cropped pants, pedal pushers, comfortable sapatillas, thongs, mocs and, oh yes... slippers, Japanese and otherwise.

When the President wore slippers, she was just being one of us. The thing with some of us is that we not only want to tell the President how to do her job, we even want to dress her up and re-do her basic... she has.

And since everybody seems to be on the subject of how the President would dress, has anybody noticed her finely made, oh so unobtrusive diamond Pomelatto loop earrings or her filigree butterflies worn all three at a time, making them look more expensive than they really are, and grouped together giving her that dash of panache or her smart Cartier red leather strapped watch? To me all these spell good taste.

So let’s leave the President be. Let her do her job as President. It’s a daunting task for sure. And if one fine day, she feels like "letting go," she’s entitled to it. Slippers and all. It’s no big deal.

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Hurrah for slipper wearers, Virgie Ramos, Mons Romulo-Tantoco, Millet Mananquil, Tina Maristela-Ocampo, Mia Borromeo, Karen Santos, Doris Ho, Beng Dy, my Liaa and Pin, Bella Madrigal, Dr. Eloi Buse, Dr. Sylvia Huang, Dr. Imelda Cervantes, Kaka Soraya Adiong, Margarita Delgado, Mavic Simon, Chelo Ofileña, Ofelia Siao, Cathy de Guzman and more and more women.