Pretending To Speak English

I do not know what it is they find in Cagayan de Oro so appealing or if they are just passing through, en route to somewhere scenic and exotic, wherever that may be. By “they” I am referring to Caucasian tourists who, to their credit, remain unfazed to the simple fact that Cagayan de Oro is in Mindanao(which is too often viewed abroad as a war zone which is of course farthest from the truth).
Ordinarily I would pay little attention to them, finding most of them polite and generally unassuming. Many would come to the shop, nod to the waitress good morning, order coffee and breakfast, and then generally keep to themselves. Some would offer compliments and a warm thank you just before leaving. And some would be back at about the same time the next morning and order the exact same thing they ate the day before.
But every so often, someone comes and rankles your nerves. It is understandable, there are bound to be some rotten characters among the many that come. Too often, you forget about the little unpleasantness and be thankful just the same for the business.
But sometimes the plain arrogance and crappy attitude get to you. Sometimes you meet someone who offends to high heavens with his bad manners; someone that makes you wish you took that lesson instead of thinking yourself too old for boxing.
Just about the other day, for instance, a middle-aged white male, obviously American, came to the shop at around 8 am asking, in a drawl, “what you got for ehy-tshee.” He was referring to the banner hung outside, advertising our breakfast meal (a choice of tapa, longanisa, corned beef, tocino, and bangus served with brewed coffee, garlic rice, and two fried eggs—this is a plug if you haven’t noticed—we are at the corner of velez and chavez sts. in DV Soria). But the hapless waitress, rattled perhaps by having to deal with a foreigner, could not make out what he was saying. And so she kept on repeating over and over something about the coffee being included in the meal. In obvious frustration for having to explain himself so early in the morning, the American suddenly said, ”Nevermind, I’m going someplace else where the waitress does not PRETEND to speak English.”
This rather arrogant behavior is sadly too common among English-speaking foreigners visiting the country. Perhaps because non-English speaking foreigners are forced, like ourselves, to adopt an alien tongue to communicate, they are more likely to make greater efforts to reach out and be understood. Which is as it should be.
Native English-speakers, on the other hand, generally are not burdened by that kind of mind-set. They think that since the Philippines prides itself, rather wrongly at that, with having been once part of the United States of Bush Jr., then they are entitled to expect to be spoken to in perfect, grammatically correct English.
This is bullshit, of course. We are, afterall, in our own country and whether we speak crooked English; whether we speak using our own dialect or whether we choose not to speak at all is our business. It is they who are here and hence… well, you get the picture.
Even the much trumpeted virtue---Filipino hospitality has to have its limits.