Just after the Boracay VIP Lounge incident, comes another story of discrimination against our own race, this time in the expat-land known as Makati.
Netizen Noelle Dolor posted this story of hers on Facebook, where she personally experienced supposed preferential treatment of foreigners over Pinoys at a popular donut chain in Greenbelt, an upscale mall complex in Makati City. Noelle fell in line at the long queue at the donut shop when the cashier apparently skipped her and the two groups in front of her, while letting foreign customers who fell further behind, cut the queue and were served immediately. Normally polite and even generous to restaurant servers and other workers in the food and beverage industry, the experience of being treated as a second-class citizen in our own country had infuriated her.
Here’s the full post below:
Let me start by saying, I’ve never treated anyone from the customer service ( F&B ) industry with disrespect. I am always courteous saying please and thank you whenever I order and I always tip minimum 20% from my food bill ( even with service charge ), sometimes I tip really high if we’re a large group or the service was impeccable. Even when service sucks, I try to understand how difficult it is to work 12 hours a day running back and forth and getting every customer’s order right. So I’m never a b*tch unless abosultely necessary. Today, I lost all composure and went nuts. I literally almost had a heart attack from being so insulted and angry.
Here’s the story:
Late lunch with my baby, around 2:30 in Greenbelt – My baby requests for J.CO, as usual there’s a queue. We patiently wait our turn so we could order J.Pops, there were 2 bigger groups in front of us, the cashier got our order and number, she said she would call us so we can pay and get our donuts. The place was pretty busy, we sat down waiting for our number to be called. We let our son run around, as long as he didn’t bother the other customers.
I see these foreigners line up, one ( a couple ) and the other (individual). I watch what happens at the counter since there really isn’t anything else to do. To my surprise, the cashier served the donut to the couple almost immediately, getting their payment and change in less than 2 minutes, while skipping the 2 groups in front of us and our order. Same thing happens to the next foreign customer.
I stood up, walked to the cashier:
Me: Excuse me, nauna kami sa pila and una yung number namin plus yung groups na ito sa harap namin. Bakit mo inuna yung mga customer na yun?
Cashier: Nagmamadali po kasi.
Me: Kami ba hindi nagmamadali?
Cashier: Ah nag hang po kasi yung POS
Me: Pero hindi siya nag hang dun sa 2 customers?
Cashier: Kasi po baka magalit yung mga puti.
Me: Excuse Me? ( so at this point, I was getting really annoyed ). What do you mean baka magalit yung puti? Mas important ba order nila kaysa samin?
Cashier: no response
Me: I just asked you a question, bakit mo inuna yung mga customer na yun?
Cashier: still no response
** I asked to call the manager ***
Me: Paulo ( Manager ) – ganito ba talaga pagpapatakbo dito sa J.CO, uunahin yung ibang customer dahil hindi Pinoy? Kasi Puti?
Manager: Hindi naman po ( he walks to the cashier and asks what happened ). **She blatantly lies and says nag hang yung machine when I was right there and saw the whole thing.
Me: Paulo, ito nangyari ha – nauna kami sa pila, you can ask these two groups waiting for their number din, and then may pumasok na ibang customers, inuna yung order. She just skipped our numbers.
Manager: Kasi po puti, nalito lang yung cashier kasi po magagalit daw.
Me: What do you mean, Kasi puti? Are you kidding me, inuna sila kasi puti sila? As the manager, you shouldn’t tolerate that sh*t. Buti kung senior citizen, buti yung PWD, okay lang eh pero anong kalokohan yan na jinujustify mo dahil puti?
So you can imagine, both the manager and the cashier refused to answer me when I started grilling them about this stupid “policy” ng J.CO na UNAHIN ANG FOREIGNER.
What annoys the sh*t out of me is that we are treated like second class citizens in our own goddamn country, where most Filipinos treat foreigners like friggin’ gods in our own land.
When will we ever have respect for our own countrymen, for ourselves? This is just really getting out of hand.
UPDATE: The donut shop in question has released an official statement on the incident.
What are your thoughts on this? Any similar experiences you’ve encountered?
