What’s in a name?

Who are Pia Wurtzbach, Cherrypie Picache, Empress Schuck, and Christine Mae Calima? The first is a no-brainer; all Filipinos know she’s last year’s Miss Universe, and the celebrity culture has always been alive and well in this country.

Sober or bizarre, one’s name is one’s most treasured possession. When I once took the course of Teaching English as a Second Language for Hong Kong students, I learned a riddle for young learners: “What belongs to you but other people use it more than yourself?” It was a real puzzler, and when they were told the answer, “Your name,” everyone said, “Of course!”

One’s name is truly one’s brand. Nowadays name recognition is very important because it upholds one’s individualism, especially among egotists (for example, Donald Trump). Notorious celebrities and eminent personages are instantly recognizable. Making a name for oneself drives many humans forward.

Today’s pervasive media which foster the celebrity culture means that Pia Wurtzbach’s name is better known around the archipelago than Christine Mae Calima’s. This is because the latter has barely had publicity despite her fine achievement at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), where she placed second in the 2016 graduating class.

It may be natural for a country like the Philippines that struggles with its lopsided economy to be fixated on beauty contests because these provide dreams of celebrity for many folks faced with the daily struggle to survive. Doubtless, Filipino beauty queens, even those with foreign fathers, make many of us believe that our pretty women put the country “on the map,” as was said of Imelda Marcos in her heyday. People who feel the nation lacks real champions feel a sense of national pride, which is why boxer Manny Pacquiao is seen as a hero despite his many flaws.

Sadly, not much attention has been paid to Miss Calima, whose life seems to have been dedicated mainly to her studies. While the media focused on the winners of various Miss Universe pageants, half-German Pia Wurtzbach was hailed like a conquering hero. But no one praised a young Pangasinan girl for her academic and military achievements.

Because Miss Wurtzbach is leggy and busty (something unknown in our society’s early Maria Clara days), her triumph has been viewed as a great achievement. The media binged on her long “struggle” to learn the ropes of modeling, high fashion and cosmetology, and the overblown prose over every bit of trivia in a Filipino woman’s reaching the apex of Hollywood perfection highlights the usual emphasis on the Western concepts of beauty, to the detriment of Asians. It showed the Filipino penchant for popular entertainment, beside which serious academic achievement pales.

In her few media interviews, Miss Calima was reported as long having hankered to enter the PMA and having consistently earned top marks in her early studies. Placing second in the PMA’s graduating class was no mean feat for the determined young lady.

Interestingly, one of Miss Calima’s colleagues in the lineup of top graduates (who placed fourth) proudly bears the name of Joseph Stalin Fagsao, whose father thought that Russian dictator was “a great leader.” Indeed, other Filipinos sport equally extraordinary names: One of Pacquiao’s daughters was christened Queen Elizabeth, a Cebu reporter goes by the name of Princess Dawn Felicitas, and then there’s a Davao newspaper columnist named Mussolini Lidasan. For a country that has elected officials like Vice President Jejomar (Jesus/Joseph/Mary) Binay to high office, this is perfectly normal.

It’s nice to have a sober name like Christine Mae as a role model in a society awash in names like Bongbong, Dingdong, Jocjoc and other colorful monikers. It shows that Filipinos shun the drab and don’t mind the absurd because it makes them stand out among the crowd of plebeians.

* * *

Isabel T. Escoda used to write from Hong Kong and has three books on Filipino women migrant workers. She now lives in Cebu.