Eating according to means

All this brouhaha about that $20,000 (about a million inflation-rapped pesos) dinner President Arroyo had at a ritzy New York restaurant with some 50 other people brings me back to an incident in a Cebu restaurant sometime in the early 1980s.

Sir Dodong Gullas, the chairman of The Freeman, used to drop by our old offices from time to time and bring along some of us editors to have lunch or dinner at one of his obviously favorite restaurants --- Eddie's Log Cabin.

Eddie's was famous for its imported steaks and we always looked forward to these treats from Sir Dodong. The steaks were by no means cheap. Prices started at P280. In the early 1980s, such prices already meant an arm and a leg, which is to say we couldn't afford them on our own.

In one of these outings, Sir Dodong asked then columnist Jim Fallar (now deceased) to come along. As we placed our orders, we noticed that Jim seemed to have a little difficulty making his choice. First time jitters in the company of the boss, we surmised.

Finally, after some prodding, Jim blurted: "Pancit canton na lang ako, sir." Our jaws dropped, but it was Sir Dodong who finally managed to say something: "Aw, ayaw sab ko intawon og pakaulawi, Jim."

What Sir Dodong meant, of course, was that while the menu indeed listed pancit canton, Eddie's was known otherwise for its steaks and other expensive fare. The restaurant was the hangout of the rich. In short, it was not the place to eat pancit canton.

Maybe Jim, who struggled all his life to make it financially, found the prices too steep for comfort. We felt the same way too the first time. But we eventually got over the hump that said the prices only seemed high because we equated them with our own means.

People live on different financial thresholds and these affect the way they perceive things. To the poor, a box of matches costing P5 is already expensive. But to the rich, a BMW car worth several millions is cheap.

And that is why all this brouhaha about that $20,000 dinner in New York only exposes the hypocrisy, bias and outright ignorance of some people, whose idea of a concerned citizenry is to ascribe everything that is evil to all that the president does and says.

One particularly harsh critic of the president is Jejomar Binay who, without thinking, attempted to strike an emotional chord among people by equating the roughly one-million-peso equivalent of the $20,000 dinner tab as enough to feed 18,000 poor Filipinos.

It is easy for Binay to say that because he is pointing the finger at someone else. But let us try to point the same finger at Binay or any of his like-minded friends and use the same equation to challenge every meal they take.

In Binay's equation, P1,000,000 can feed 18,000 Filipinos. Fine. So half that amount or P500,000 can also feed 9,000. Going down the line, P250,000 can feed 4,500; P125,000=2,250; P25,000=450; P5,000=90; P2,500=45.

Okay, so let us take the lowest amount of P2,500 which, using the same equation used by Binay, can feed 45 people. P2,500 ought to be a common enough lunch or dinner tab that Binay no doubt has picked up thousands of times in his life.

But did Binay even for once think of the 45 poor people who could have been fed out of the P2,500 lunch or dinner tab he has been picking up most of his life? P2,500 may not even register in the consciousness of Binay. And neither will 45 people.

And while we are talking about feeding, how many of us have truly shared our bounty with those who are hungry? Yes, maybe a million pesos can feed 18,000 people. But have any of us shared even a cup of noodles with one hungry person today? Go ahead, ask yourselves.

You see, we have to be very careful about what we accuse others of. President Arroyo may be a bad president. But her critics are certainly no better. In fact many are definitely worse. All they do is talk. But are they even doing half of what they preach?