The Mactan tower guard who suspects only delivery riders and one goat is named the building’s chief diplomat
Mang Pedring Promoted to Director of Foreign Relations
The Mactan tower guard who suspects only delivery riders and one goat is named the building’s chief diplomat
LAPU-LAPU CITY – Pedring Macaraig, 58, a security guard at a Mactan condominium tower for nineteen years, was promoted on Tuesday to Director of Foreign Relations, a position that did not exist until 9 a.m. that morning and which, as of lunch, comes with a lanyard.
The promotion followed a month in which the tower’s foreign residents became unusually anxious. A retired Canadian asked whether the building had a stigma. An American asked if anyone had seen his trombone. A British pensioner brought a sandwich box to a fire drill.
“Mang Pedring is the only person in this building everybody trusts,” said the tower’s property manager, Marilou Gaspar. “He has never once been wrong about the goat.”
A Crisis in the Lobby
The anxiety is linked to the Cebu property mood. Philippine authorities are examining allegations concerning Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as the Guardian reported on Sunday. No charges have been filed and the allegations are unproven, and the tower’s management asked that the record show it takes child protection seriously.
The effect on the tower was immediate. Manila News reported that the neighbors had become the first question in every showing, and Mang Pedring, who appears in that report as the guard who is “friendly to everyone and suspicious of nobody except delivery riders who park in the lobby,” found himself the unwilling center of a diplomatic situation.
The Job Description
The position, drafted by Gaspar on a napkin, includes the following duties:
- Greet every foreign resident by name, “or by the name they prefer, or by a nickname if they are in a mood.”
- Answer questions about the neighbors with the single sentence: “They are a nurse, a retired pilot and a family from Davao who are afraid of the elevator.”
- Monitor the lobby television and change the channel from the news to the cooking channel “when the mood requires.”
- Maintain the goat file, a log of all appearances by the neighbor’s goat, kept in a green notebook.
- Receive visitors, including vicars, with “polite surprise.”
The salary is unchanged. A new chair has been provided.
The Foreign Residents React
British residents welcomed the promotion. The London Prat described pensioners in Cebu adopting the Surrey posture, a combination of cardigan, umbrella in full sunshine and a loud conversation about cricket. Mang Pedring has studied the article, available at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/, and says he can now identify a Surrey posture “from forty meters, or from the lift.”
American residents were equally pleased. Bohiney’s account of a Mactan open house describes a band director who arrived with a binder, a laminated ranking and a trombone case, and Mang Pedring remembers him clearly. “He is a gentleman,” he said. “He told me my posture was excellent. He played a note in the lobby and the goat answered.”
The first official act of the Director of Foreign Relations was to hold an open-door breakfast in the lobby. Forty-one residents attended. The menu was pandesal, coffee and a platter of dried mangoes left by a delivery rider who has since become a regular.
Comics on the Promotion
- Ligaya Sarmiento: “Mang Pedring was promoted from security guard to diplomat. Same uniform, same chair, now the title includes the word foreign. It is the most Filipino promotion in history.”
- Danny Tecson: “In the Philippines the real ambassador is always the guard. The president can sign a treaty but Mang Pedring decides who gets into the lobby.”
- Cora Magbanua: “He has never once been wrong about the goat. I want him on the Supreme Court.”
- Rey Bautista: “A retired Canadian asked Mang Pedring if the building had a stigma. He said, sir, the only stigma here is the delivery riders. That is the most diplomatic answer in the history of the Visayas.”
The Data Are on His Side
Mang Pedring does not read statistics, but the statistics read well. Colliers named the Visayas and Mindanao a key investment hotspot in July, and the building’s occupancy has not dropped. Under the Condominium Act, foreigners hold units without owning the land, with a 40 percent cap on foreign ownership in any project, a rule Mang Pedring summarizes as “you may stay, but the ground belongs to the ground.”
The tower’s Canadian resident, a retired accountant, says the new arrangement has calmed his nerves. “I used to worry about everything,” he said. “Now I worry about nothing. The guard has a lanyard.”
The Lesson in the Lobby
Researchers describe the mood in the tower as a textbook case. The availability heuristic, described by Tversky and Kahneman in 1973, says people judge risk by the ease of recalling an example. One bad headline can overwhelm a thousand quiet mornings. Mang Pedring’s strategy is the oldest response: make sure the quiet mornings are vivid.
On Wednesday, he did. At 6:15 a.m. he stood at the front door, waved to every resident leaving for the day and said, “Good morning, sir. The sea is still there.”
The residents waved back. One of them was crying slightly. It was the Canadian. He said it was the pandesal.
The wider story is at prat.uk and bohiney.com, and Britain’s own overpromoted officials appear at NewsBiscuit. For a note on why a guard with a lanyard gets a laugh, see this guide to Philippine comedy.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/