EDITORIAL - No humble pie for Gloria Diaz

Humility defines greatness. Unfortunately, while all people are blessed with humility, most do not realize it. And so they go around looking for greatness, never knowing they were born with it, finding out only when humility outlines its borders.

Born great, in the image and likeness of God, any further search for greatness is futile, a fool’s errand. All anyone has to do is tap into what God has already provided. But God added a safeguard — humility. Without humility, man will burn himself out, will self-destruct.

The trouble with humility, no, not humility ... the trouble with man is that he almost always mistakes humility for weakness. To man, to be humble is to lack strength. He imagines so many negative vibes about humility: Cowardice, subservience, subjugation, surrender, etc.

And that is why it is so hard to apologize for people who have not realized the true measure of their greatness. People who have not come to grips with their true worth will find it demeaning to apologize.

Take Gloria Diaz. She has been Miss Universe. Nobody can take that away from her. In the Philippines, there is only one other Filipina who can make that claim. But the greatness of Gloria Diaz has been rendered hollow and meaningless, and all because she refuses to apologize.

Rightly or wrongly, Cebuanos felt they have been slurred by what Gloria Diaz said in a television interview, wherein she supposedly said Cebuanos do not know how to speak English well, or something to that effect.

Gloria Diaz denied ever saying something to that effect, despite the television footage as evidence. She insists whatever may have angered the Cebuanos was not what she meant. Fine. But come to think of it, wouldn’t that have made apologizing easier?

But no. Gloria Diaz cannot imagine the world’s most beautiful woman 41 years ago eating humble pie. To her, apologizing is humiliating. She doesn’t get it that apologizing is not owning up to a mistake or guilt. It is reaching out to iron the kinks, to make things beautiful again.

Gloria Diaz can apologize without saying she was wrong. She can tell Cebuanos how sorry she is that what she said offended them. She can tell them she did not mean what she said, but having said it, she is sorry for the hurt it caused. But then, it takes greatness to do that.