Getting off the high horse: Mayor Magalong and the Tim Yap incident

It started Tuesday morning, January 26, when an edited video of Tim Yap’s birthday at the grounds of Camp John Hay Manor was “leaked” on Facebook.

It was held on the night of January 17 with Tim Yap and 30 of his friends. The theme was supposed to be Cordilleran with a Cordilleran cultural dance troupe accompanying Yap who was in a all-white riding a tall white horse. He was also wearing the ulo di kang-o or Ifugao headdress which was traditionally worn by a groom during a wedding.

There was also a mambunong or shaman chanting a blessing to the eventologist Yap.

The cultural appropriation was enough of a red flag.

But that wasn’t the case. It was Tim Yap and his guests not wearing face masks or face shields.  

Tim Yap was present during the closing of Ibagiw Arts Festival early December.

Like his birthday celebration, there was a bonfire, gongs and dancing among the Baguio artists.

But the timing was different. Starting February, Baguio and the rest of the Cordillera will revert to (general community quarantine) GCQ because of the increase of cases of the UK variant of COVID-19 or B117 in Bontoc, Mountain Province; and La Trinidad, Benguet.

The birthday, of course, happened on January 17 but the reactions among Baguio residents were immediate.

The YouTube video of the party was viewed 17,000 times and adverse reactions were mostly from Baguio residents.

The incident gained nationwide attention only recently, when netizens called out videos and photos of the event posted by the guests on social media, drawing the attention of the Department of Tourism, which said it will investigate the event. One of the guests was actress KC Concepcion, who wore an orange terno and was seen in a conga line.

“Even before this whole crap hit the fan, I couldn’t understand why local tourism, art and culture VIPS were jumping through hoops for this guy. I mean really, why? A self-proclaimed tourism messiah. And he speaks as if Baguio’s survival as a tourism destination and with that its economy really depended on him…and that party, despite the risks, had to happen…or Baguio is doomed,” wrote Karlo Altamonte, a Baguio theater artist and cultural activist in his Facebook post.

In his defense, Yap said on PEP: “What actually happened behind this video is that everybody, they were on their way to eat, to have their dinner. And then all of a sudden, the cultural dance happened. And so, the cultural dancers pulled everybody, including myself who got carried away, we invited everybody to do the cultural community dance.”

The PEP article, however, revealed something else: it was a picture of Baguio Mayor (and the country’s contact tracing czar) Benjamin Magalong and his wife posing with KC Concepcion. Both KC and Arlene Magalong were not wearing masks.

The news came the night that Mayor Magalong said that the Cordillera, including Baguio City, will be under general community quarantine (GCQ) from February 1 to 15.

And this came after the Public Information Office (PIO) of Baguio posted on Facebook about those apprehended in the city for not wearing face masks and face shields.

The PIO also came out with a short statement asking John Hay Manor to explain within 72 hours why it should not be sanctioned for the “celebrity party protocol breach.”

That post garnered 1,300 comments, almost all angry reactions, and more than 500 shares.

Monin Navarro, an adviser of the mayor, posted on her Facebook page a picture of the masked Magalong couple with the unmasked Tim Yap.

Navarro said that Yap bought some artworks at the Convention Center during the Ibagiw and promised to promote Baguio tourism. She said the Magalong couple did not stay long at the party as the mayor’s father just died and he must return to the wake via Zoom.

Navarro’s next post said that Arlene Magalong is a KC Concepcion fan and just took off her mask for the picture and put it back on.

She also said that Arlene Magalong will be fined for the breach anyway.

It will take a long time for Tim Yap’s birthday party to be forgotten. Up to now, residents are still seething over the other celebrity protocol breach when San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora flouted the city’s strict protocol in the early part of June last year, going past the checkpoints and proceeding to Baguio Country Club.

That started a spate of denials and libel cases in the city.

“Tao lang po (I’m only human),” Mayor Magalong said about the Tim Yap party incident.

“So ano kami, mga cactus (So what are we, cacti)?” one resident commented. – Rappler.com