MEDIUM RARE

Charisse Chuidian, VP for public relations of City of Dreams hotel out there in BGC, wouldn’t be the acknowledged dean of hotel p.r.’s in the Philippines if she did not know the ABC of what it is to be nice to clients and good to people in general.

So when she gathered us for lunch, she described her guests as “long-time friends.” The reunion, sort of, brought together Chita Razon, Sonia Roco, myself, and Thelma San Juan, who’s never without her apps to report to her followers what’s the latest on the food and fashion scene.  

There we sat, ‘round a round table at Crystal Dragon, City of Dreams’ Chinese restaurant, with Charisse presiding over dishes prepared by Chef Chan. Chita, despite her 92 years, teaches expat children how to behave, i.e., good manners and right conduct. A society editor in her time, she was married to my friend Louie Tabuena before they broke up and she fell in love with Bert Nievera in Hawaii. Today she’s also known as the mother of Martin Nievera. Two years ago, Chita marked her 90 years by publishing a collection of her columns, My Chair Rocks. Seated across Chita was Sonia Roco, widow of Senator “Honorary Woman” Raul Roco. Sonia is two semesters away from her Ph.D. in cosmic anthropology, which is not as out-of-this-world as you may think (it’s grounded in the social sciences, unless I’m wrong).

Charisse connects all of us one way or another through her work, but beneath the surface there’s more than the professional reasons. In my case, I met her when she was single and identified with the Century Park Sheraton in Manila, from which she later moved to Mandarin. (In 2026, Mandarin is expected to be reborn on or near its original site in Makati.) Charisse’s contemporaries in hotel p.r.  are either abroad or have retired from the business, leaving only Melanie Pallorina at the Diamond on Roxas Blvd., and Joyce Wassmer at Solaire north and south.

It’s unavoidable, how we cannot help being associated with our work and place of work. That probably explains why the classified ads pages show now and then the most unglamorous ID pictures of men and women who have been disowned by their employers.