Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Philippine politicians

email i got today...

A friend has been a Travel Agent for 30 Years. She says her 30 years of taking reservation requests from government officials explains why we are all in trouble.

Here's a few choice reservation questions from these bright people:

1) Senator Tessie Oreta asked for an aisle seat so that her hair wouldn't get messed-up by being near the window.

2) I got a call from ex-Mayor Joey Marquez, who wanted to go to Capetown. Explaining the length of the flight and passport information, he interrupted me with, " I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts. " Well, without trying to make him look like he was stupid, I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts. Capetown is in Africa." His response ..(click).

3) Congressman Mark Lapid called, furious about a Florida package we did for him and his girlfriend then, tv star Kris Aquino. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain, that was not possible since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!" So, he expected to see the ocean on both sides of the hotel?!!!!

4) Sen Ralph Recto's wife, actress & Batangas Mayor Vilma Santos asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?" I said, "No." She explained, "But they look so close on the map."

5) Senator Lito Lapid asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. I noticed he had only an hour lay-over in Dallas. When asked why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

6) Senator Jinggoy Estrada (son of Erap) called last week. He needed to know how it was possible that his flight from Detroit left at 8:20 a.m. and got into Chicago at 8:33 a.m. I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but he could not understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told him the plane went very fast, and he bought that!

7) Congressman Ronaldo Zamora asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?" I said, "No, why do you ask?" He replied, "Well, when I checked-in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight. I think that is very rude!" I looked into it and explained the city code for Fresno, California is F A T, and the airline was just putting a destination tag on his luggage.

8) Former presidential candidate, now tv star, Eddie Gil inquired about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over ALL the cost info, he asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California, and take the train to Hawaii?"

9) I just got off the phone with Senator Bong Revilla who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?" I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

10) Vice President Noli De Castro asked, "'I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola, FL. Do I have to get on one of those twin engine planes?' I asked if he meant fly to Pensacola, FL on a commuter plane. He said, "Yeah, whatever!"

11) Congressman Dilangalen called and had a question about the documents needed to fly to China. I reminded him he needed a visa. "Oh, no I don't! I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those." So, I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this, he said, "Look, I've been to China four times, and everytime they accepted my American Express!"

12) Senator Miriam Defensor called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York." The agent said, "Are you sure that's the name of the town?" "Yes, what flights do you have?' replied Miriam. After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am. I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Rhino anywhere." Then Miriam retorted, "Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!" The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?" "'That's it! I knew it was a big animal," she said.

Now you know why the Philippine Government is in the shape that it's in.

2 comments:

grifter said...

no, i refuse to believe Miriam is that dumb. she's a friggin' genius!!!

Jego said...

Urban myth. Probably used an existing email and substituted names of politicians.

Mark Lapid's thin Florida reminds me of the time we went to Cavite city and I said to a friend, 'The sea's that way.' 'No,' he said, 'it's that way.' Cavite is a very thin city. Nyaahahahaaa!!