‘Victory has many parents’

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” —Harry S Truman

 By Alex P. Vidal

 

ALL of a sudden, so many people are now claiming to be “responsible” or “instrumental” behind the meteoric success of newly crowned Miss Universe Philippines 2020 Rabiya Mateo.

Some of these eager beaver characters, in fact, competed with the publicity that ground-swelled in the post-coronation days where Mateo instantly became the toast of the beauty pageant community after her Cinderella-like ascension into the world of celebrity and stardom at the Baguio Country Club on October 25.

Hardly had the moment of ecstasy and state of euphoria during the pageant hours simmered down, some of these publicity freaks were already in the media talking about how they supposedly molded the 23-year-old winner of Miss Iloilo 2020 to become a phenomenal beauty queen.

Why can’t they wait for Mateo to mention their names and give the credit due them if indeed they were part of her smashing success in the Miss Universe Philippines 2020 competition?

Mateo is very much aware of the difficult roads and sacrifices she went through before she amassed the gargantuan achievement that placed Iloilo City in the radar of reverence and respect nationwide.

With her humility and intelligence, Mateo definitely knows how to give credit where credit is due; she will remember the people who delivered the yeoman’s job that helped catapult her to become a national beauty titleholder. 

The more they make a noise and give credit to themselves, the more the people will suspect they are nothing but credit-grabbers and enthusiastic humbugs.

John F. Kennedy once said, “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”

 

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UP to the eleventh hour, sinking U.S. Presidential Election releectionist President Donald Trump continued stick to his incredible theory that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a hoax.

We suspect the Trump campaign has decided to sustain its stand on the pandemic issue in order to avoid the COVID-19 discussion during their campaign sorties.

The pandemic and its deadly onslaught in America, where more than 230,000 Americans have died and nine million people in the U.S. have been infected, has become a central topic being zeroed in by the Democratic Party.

And it has brought poll wonders for former Vice President Joseph Biden who has been leading in all the pre-election day polls by at least eight percent nationwide as of October 31.

To add misery to the Trump campaign, the stock market has spoken and has predicted a win by Biden. 

The stock market's time-tested "presidential predictor" was penciled to be right about who would win the election: The S&P 500's 2.2 percent decline in the three months leading up to November four years ago signaled that the incumbent party in the White House—the Democrats—would be replaced, even when the polls were wrong in 2016.

“In other words, the stock market predicted Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton despite polls to the contrary,” reported Fortune’s Jen Weiczner. 

 

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Now, Weiczner explained, the same stock market indicator, which is dependent upon S&P 500 performance for the three months from August through the end of October, “has finalized its prediction.” 

With the S&P 500 down slightly (just 0.6 percent) over that period on the last trading day of October, the stock market's presidential predictor, as it's known by market analysts, is reportedly officially signaling that Biden will win the election.

“Though the dip is minor, the negative S&P 500 performance over those three months indicates that the incumbent party—in other words, President Trump—will be voted out of the White House and replaced with a Democrat,” stressed Weiczner.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

    

 

     

 

Beauties with no values

“Show me a good loser and I'll show you an idiot.”

—Leo Durocher

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

WE are saddened that some candidates in the just concluded Miss Universe Philippines 2020 contest turned out to be sore losers and cry babies.

Judging from the way they reacted and sowed intrigues in the social media and other platforms after the amazing Iloilo City bet Rabiya Mateo, 23, was crowned as the Miss Universe Philippines 2020 at the Baguio Country Club on October 25, it appears they lacked fundamental values and can’t be considered in any stretch of the imagination as role models of the young generation.

Although their egregious behaviors and terrible display of unsportsmanship conduct slightly tainted the prestigious pageant, they never inflicted any dent in the honor and prestige of Ms. Mateo’s scintillating victory.

The Ilongga beauty’s exceptional performance was witnessed by millions of people from all over the Philippines and in other parts of the world.

There was no doubt Ms Mateo was the most outstanding performer and heavily admired by members of the board of judges in the competition.

 

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Like a hard-working Olympic medalist, Ms. Mateo won the competition fair and square through her intellectual prowess, humility, gracefulness, and natural beauty. 

She bested the 45 other equally magnificent candidates through her skills and excellence, not because she cheated as some of her bitter and envious rivals were trying to maliciously insinuate.

The post-pageant negative reactions of some losing candidates were uncalled for and appalling, to say the least.

Their parents, if they aren’t avaricious and sore losers themselves, must be very ashamed of the way their daughters, who cast aspersions on Ms. Mateo’s victory, behaved.

We congratulate Ms. Mateo for bringing pride and honor to Iloilo City.

We also laud the people who helped her during the pre-pageant preparation level.

It was a smashing victory that lifted the spirits of all Ilonggos amid the anxiety and economic doldrums brought by the pandemic.

 

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Why are some brains programmed to hate losing? 

Well even if you've never considered yourself competitive, it turns out that psychologists have identified a phenomenon called the loss aversion, which explains that even if the outcome of a situation is the same, we feel worse when we lose something than when we gain something, explained labroots writer Kathryn DeMuth Sullivan.

Sullivan explained: “For example, take the hypothetical situation where you are given the responsibility to choose a plan to save 600 human lives from an epidemic and you are given two choices: Plan A will 100% guarantee saving 200 lives while Plan B is 33.3% likely to save everyone but 66.6% likely to save no one.”

She added: “When the situation is proposed with this wording, of gaining something, most people will choose Plan A. But when the wording is reconfigured into something that you will lose, saying that Plan A will 100% guarantee losing 400 lives and Plan B has a 33.3% chance of losing no one with a 66.6% chance of losing everyone, most people will choose Plan B.” 

Sullivan said this psychological effect is called the risky choice framing effect and combined with the loss aversion effect makes our brains make choices that may otherwise seem illogical. 

There is some evidence that our aversion to losing comes from a heightened reaction in the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions, she explained further.

“Knowing that emotions are so integral in our decision-making despite logical mathematics is not only interesting but can also help you out if you're ever in the role of choosing who gets to live out an epidemic!” Sullivan pointed out.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)