DASTARDLY IS the (mis)deed of the management of Holiday Inn Resort Clark Field to try – reportedly – to heap the burden of the blame on the father of the 8-year-old boy who drowned in the resort’s pool.
This is imputing the gravest insult to the most grievous injury.
If only to extricate itself from direct responsibility for the death of the tyke, HIRCF management seems prepared to go to any length without regard to sense and sensibility.
It is just too bad – and too right – that HIRCF cannot escape blame.
The assertion from one so-called manager of the hotel that swimmers at its pools are duly warned to “Swim at your own risk” thereby making the presence of a lifeguard on duty unnecessary is as stupid as the mind that concocted it.
To follow that stupid argument, it would have been also appropriate to post notices at all entrances to the hotel warning “Enter at your own risk.” At the restaurants, “Eat at your own risk.” And at each room, “Sleep at your own risk.” So the hotel cannot be held liable for any untoward incident befalling its guests within its premises.
Stupid. Simply stupid.
There was a dead child in the hotel pool. There was no lifeguard. Hotel guests – not hotel staff – were the ones who tried – in vain – to revive the child. How can HIRCF escape blame with this body of evidence?
So the hotel sent a wreath at the tyke’s wake? So it has cleared itself of liability?
Stupid. Very stupid.
Nightmare at the Inn
THE DEPARTMENT of Tourism may as well issue – pronto! – a travel advisory to all tourists: Holiday Inn Resort Clark Field is a high-risk area.
A nightmare. Of an uncouth of a GM who, after one week of evading all investigations of the incident, suddenly comes out in the papers to say: “We sympathize and respect the family’s grievances.”
Words from HIRCF won’t mean much to the bereaved family now. Unless they are actualized in deeds. So Mister GM, better put your heart where your mouth is. Show, better yet prove, the sincerity of your sympathies. Own up the responsibility and pay your obligations.
SO IT was in 2001. Topmost is excerpted from my Zona Libre column in The Voice issue of June 17-23, 2001. The other is under Commentary in Sun-Star Pampanga, June 22, 2001.
In the afternoon of April 19, 2009, a Sunday, 7-year-old Jahzeel Erin Gonzales of Barangay Mabiga, Mabalacat, Pampanga drowned in the swimming pool of Holiday Inn-Clark.
The incident and the events that followed were a virtual repeat of the 2001 case. The bereaved parents’ quest for justice for their child blocked by the cavalier, if not outright arrogant, posturing of the HIRCF management.
This is imputing the gravest insult to the most grievous injury.
If only to extricate itself from direct responsibility for the death of the tyke, HIRCF management seems prepared to go to any length without regard to sense and sensibility.
It is just too bad – and too right – that HIRCF cannot escape blame.
The assertion from one so-called manager of the hotel that swimmers at its pools are duly warned to “Swim at your own risk” thereby making the presence of a lifeguard on duty unnecessary is as stupid as the mind that concocted it.
To follow that stupid argument, it would have been also appropriate to post notices at all entrances to the hotel warning “Enter at your own risk.” At the restaurants, “Eat at your own risk.” And at each room, “Sleep at your own risk.” So the hotel cannot be held liable for any untoward incident befalling its guests within its premises.
Stupid. Simply stupid.
There was a dead child in the hotel pool. There was no lifeguard. Hotel guests – not hotel staff – were the ones who tried – in vain – to revive the child. How can HIRCF escape blame with this body of evidence?
So the hotel sent a wreath at the tyke’s wake? So it has cleared itself of liability?
Stupid. Very stupid.
Nightmare at the Inn
THE DEPARTMENT of Tourism may as well issue – pronto! – a travel advisory to all tourists: Holiday Inn Resort Clark Field is a high-risk area.
A nightmare. Of an uncouth of a GM who, after one week of evading all investigations of the incident, suddenly comes out in the papers to say: “We sympathize and respect the family’s grievances.”
Words from HIRCF won’t mean much to the bereaved family now. Unless they are actualized in deeds. So Mister GM, better put your heart where your mouth is. Show, better yet prove, the sincerity of your sympathies. Own up the responsibility and pay your obligations.
SO IT was in 2001. Topmost is excerpted from my Zona Libre column in The Voice issue of June 17-23, 2001. The other is under Commentary in Sun-Star Pampanga, June 22, 2001.
In the afternoon of April 19, 2009, a Sunday, 7-year-old Jahzeel Erin Gonzales of Barangay Mabiga, Mabalacat, Pampanga drowned in the swimming pool of Holiday Inn-Clark.
The incident and the events that followed were a virtual repeat of the 2001 case. The bereaved parents’ quest for justice for their child blocked by the cavalier, if not outright arrogant, posturing of the HIRCF management.
Some things never change. Some people never learn.
And the Clark Development Corp., lessor to HIRCF?
Ever smug in its blessed quietude. As it was in that incident of patent racism inflicted upon its own managers at the London Pub during the Pacquiao-Hatton fight.
