“Bubble Gang” and Michael V are about the only Philippine TV figures I am interested in. I don’t EVEN have cable TV here in Dubai bec I can hardly catch BBC, CNN and MBC on regular TV. So when somebody told me “Bubble Gang” is doing a live in Dubai, I bought tickets and rounded up a group of Pinoy friends and rallied them to pay some money expecting to be entertained by their skits and antics.

Bubble Gang was disappointing. Michael V didn’t show up. The so-called “big screens” were so small it was pointless having it there. They hardly did comedy. They sang. And danced. And f****** sang.

In the end, my friends and I went home early. We all thought that this was like being back in Manila. The mentality of “ok na yan, Pilipino lang naman ang manonood. Huwag na magpraktis. Pakantahin mo lang sila Wendell at pasayaw-sayawin mo lang si Ruffa Mae ayos na yang mga yan” was written all over it.

I hate to blow my own horn but I wanted to shout to the organizers, “you f****** leeches, you expect us to watch this crap! We watched the almost-perfect Alegria of Cirque Du Soleil just twenty-four hours ago and you expect us to swallow crap like this!??!?!”

Haaay.

Shall I also tell you about the Filipino magazine here in Dubai whom I (softly and with a lot of sugar-coating) blasted today in Facebook as I told the publisher, a UP alumna, why her magazine just does not “uplift the image of the Filipino in Dubai and the Gulf!” I don’t see any “uplifting” going on when the magazine itself makes a parody of Pinoys’ bad English. They’re totally going in the wrong direction with the contents of the magazine. They have this “kasi nag-name drop ako ng mga sikat na Pinoy or half-Pinoy living elsewhere in the world so by association dapat irespeto ako” attitude written all over the magazine. At ang mutual admiration society, hay naku, di matapos! Fine, crab mentality’s not the way to go, but neither is happy contentment with the mediocre.

There’s just no shortcut to being the best. Plan it right, implement right, control.

So, hindi ka nag-iisa sa inis mo sa nangyayari sa atin. I haven’t even began to tell you what useless piece of s**ts our consulate is here when it comes to helping Filipino victims.

Anyway, we must meet up when I’m in Manila! My long-term goal is to head country marketing efforts once I go back sa ‘tin. I need to be assured though that there are still many, many brilliant Pinoys still in the Phil who are as hungry for a change as I am. So I hope to see you and a lot of peeps come May.

Siya…

Iman