To Dance or Not to Dance

A lot has already been said about the dancing cabin crew members of budget Philippine carrier Cebu Pacific; as expected there’s a fair share of people opposing it and another half lauding the airline carrier for pioneering a new way of introducing safety details on a flight.

I have been mulling over it the last few days and have come to deciding that I am not for it. You know that feeling when you meet a person for the first time and sense that there’s something odd about him that you couldn’t just peg—well that’s how I felt; it’s cool, its’ got everyone’s attention but honey, it just ain’t right.

It’s a fairly novel idea. I mean, take a flight and you are bound to see that almost a large percentage of the passengers will not actually listen to the safety presentation. I guess it’s more of like a “I have seen one already and know what to do” thing. It’s SOP, protocol perhaps, that despite you knowing what to do, it is their duty to tell us.

For one, once this becomes a regular thing, then hiring practices now at Cebu Pacific will include the key question, “Can you dance?”

Budding stewardess’ and male stewards will now not only worry about height requirements or their mastery of conversational English but also worry if they can dance to a five-minute or so song extolling safety details of a flight.

OK, let’s say a prospective candidate has all the necessary requirements to become a cabin steward (education, training, etc.) yet they will not compromise on the “need to dance” policy, or simply thinking that they just don’t have the guts. What happens to them?

What then, sooner or later, in the middle of a dance number, some female stewardess and male steward will probably go to the middle of the aisle and burst into song; singing about how to snap on the seatbelts and finding the most accessible exit to the tune of a Lady Gaga song.

While we’re at it, and since the people down at Cebu Pacific feel like they’re on a roll, why don’t you start offering passengers the opportunity to have a ladies drink or men’s drink with the cabin crew. That could be a more direct and interactive approach to sharing the safety details. Something like, come have a seat with me; what do you want to drink? OK, tell me how does this seat belt work.

I know I am going to hit someone’s sensibilities with this next statement but here goes nothing—We Filipinos are just too darn theatrical. Too cultural. Too artsy. Give us a situation and we’re more likely to infuse the elements of dance and song to solve it. What do we get in return? We have now officially become a nation that other people will not take seriously in terms of business, trade and other important things that matter.

Let me refresh your memory. Take youtube and other social networks for example;

The Dancing Cebu inmates (Dance); Charice Pempengco (Music); Filipino International Hip Hop Dancing groups (Dance) and Manny Pacquiao (Sports/ Showbusiness).

We don’t astound the world because we are smart or because we’ve come up with the next best solution to the global financial crisis; we make the world notice us because we can dance and sing.

Frankly, it’s fine to be recognized for that but don’t we long for the other things—like the ones that really matter. Wouldn’t it be great to feel that tourists or foreigners come to visit the Philippines to seek potential investment opportunities or strategic partnerships and not because they wanted to be on a local domestic flight to see the dancing cabin crew members?

I rest my case.