Davao, here is looking at you!

WITH the coming new administration and its set of personalities, just wondering if Davao pragmatism in clothes will trump the Manila flair for over-the-top fashion ensembles. After all, we are talking about governance. Form should follow function. Meaning, it is a simple hand-over on June 30 that should keep a business-like if formal tone. Formal, as in serious without ostentation, distraction or triumphalism expressed in too celebratory clothes. But with the serious note of a new beginning.

I guess this makes me sound like the party pooper. Especially when we are contemplating the opening of Congress, which brings on a tsunami of luxury clothing, mostly in native fabrics, which ends up conveying an air of triumphalism right there separating the governed from the leaders. In a democracy, we are supposed to elect servant-leaders, not royalty, homegrown as that may be. Those elected must demonstrate to the rest of the population that they are still one with us in our serviceable clothes, not showily apart. Considering that I am an advocate of indigenous fabrics and work for the preservation and development of our traditional hand-woven fibers, it does seem I am deliberately missing an opportunity to encourage a wholesale fashion display of their variety and attractiveness. It is not that way at all. I am calling for restraint to fit the occasion. By all means, use indigenous materials, but in a way that unites us as a people, as in affordable, practical and, yes, modest, please.