The Coffee Ritual.
Judgements, I’ve found, are born from first impressions, which are readily made, rarely forgotten, and almost always turn out to be true. And first impressions spring from first sight, first words, or first deeds.
As a foreign correspondent, I consciously tried to make a good first impression because it could determine the course of a future relationship or, more importantly, whether an interview turned out to be good or bad. People hold preconceptions well before first meetings provide first impressions.
Coffee holds a special place in Philippine society, on both sides of politics. There’s a distinctly different ‘coffee ritual’ observed by government ministers and opposition leaders, and it can be whittled down to coffee drinking habits, principally what type of coffee is offered, and how it is served.
As a foreign correspondent, I was typecast and stereotyped by government ministers and officials even before we first met. And when we did, I was treated with cautious suspicion. They remained aloof and disdainful. It was different among opposition leaders. They were invariably friendly and obliging. I suppose it was because they thought strategically. They saw the propaganda value of being open and helpful to a foreign correspondent, and I benefitted from their forthrightness.
It was obvious, even before our first meeting, that government ministers and officials were prone to be guided by preconceptions of me, and that would determine which ‘coffee ritual’ I deserved. The coffee they chose indicated whether I was welcome, or unwelcome, loathed, or tolerated. The most intentional snub was when the interviewee’s desk or table was refreshment free: no coffee, no tea, not even water. That was standard practice for some government ministers and officials – never the opposition – and its meaning was unmistakeable: you are not welcome; don’t get too comfortable; and make it quick.
Instant coffee was a half-hearted signal: you’re welcome, but not too welcome, and certainly undeserving of brewed coffee. To show their disdain, these interviewees invariably sat back, pointed to the jar of instant coffee, the hot water, sugar, and milk, and suggested I help myself. I was undeserving of a brewed cup of coffee. Instant coffee was good enough.
The ultimate accolade – the sign that I was not just a welcome guest but an honoured guest – was when I was offered a freshly brewed cup of coffee. If it was self-serve, that was good. If it was felicitously poured and handed to me, that was probable best of all. I very quickly realised that a waiting pot or cup of brewed coffee was an unmistakable sign you were not just an acceptable guest, but a welcome guest. It was something done, almost exclusively, in the homes or in the offices of opposition leaders who were always eager to give their opinions to foreign correspondents.
First impressions were almost always lasting impressions and over the years the ‘coffee ritual’ rarely changed. Sometimes it did. If I was upgraded from instant coffee to brewed coffee on the second or third meeting with a government minister or an official, I took it as a compliment; their estimation of me had mellowed from cautious hesitancy to relaxed familiarity.
I met three presidents when I was in the Philippines, and the children of two presidents who would go on to become presidents themselves, long after I left. They each had their own ‘coffee ritual’.
The incumbent, Ferdinand Marcos, displayed a snooty disdain, which contrasted sharply with the courtesy shown by the only surviving past president I met, Diosdado Macapagal. In the presidential palace, sharing coffee with Marcos was a distinctly inconsequential non-event; he went through the motions, nothing more, nothing less. A fancy coffee pot was there on the glass table, with two matching cups and saucers, a small jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. And there they stayed, untouched, while I interviewed him. Not once during the half-hour meeting, did Marcos suggest we have coffee, or even motion for me to help myself. He had a glass of water. I did not. I was not given a glass of water, nor was I offered one. Like our conversation, the coffee grew cold, and at the exact moment my allotted 30-minute interview passed, a palace attendant announced my time was up and ushered me out. A second meeting with Marcos, was a repeat of the first: courteous, but strained, with not a hint of conviviality.
Like her husband, Imelda Marcos went through the hospitality pretence, but with a bit more panache. Instead of a chair, she sat in the middle of a Parisian looking three-seat exquisitely upholstered antique divan with sculptured gilded mouldings. I sat opposite on an ornate single chair. A majestically large antique coffee pot was in the middle of the table, surrounded by a matching set of bone China cups and plates, one with tiny biscuits. Like her husband, Imelda Marcos made no reference to the coffee and, similarly allowed it to go cold. The idea that she, and not a maid, would pour her own coffee was laughable. As for pouring hers, then mine…hilarious.
Cory Aquino didn’t pour me a cup of coffee. But the circumstances were different. She was a self-proclaimed ‘humble housewife’ when we met on the worst day of her life. Her husband, the Philippines most formidable opposition leader was dead, assassinated, lying in an open casket in her suburban loungeroom in his blood-stained clothes, with a steady line of mourners filing past. It was a moment of immense distress, but the quietly spoken Aquino expressed concern that I might be hungry and ushered me into her kitchen and made me a cucumber sandwich while the maid looked on. Three years later, she would become the eleventh president of the Philippines. Her 23-year-old son, ‘Noynoy’, who on that day poured me a glass of water, would become the fifteenth president of the Philippines, 27 years later.
Coffee with another former president, Diosdado Macapagal, was an equally civil affair. Defeated by Marcos in 1965, he was retired and an entrenched Marcos critic in his seventies. I met him several times in his home. He could be relied upon for a pithy anti-Marcos quip. We sat opposite each other in deep cushioned armchairs in his loungeroom. When his daughter brought in already poured cups of brewed coffee on a tray, we helped ourselves, drank together, and chattered. His daughter, who sat listening, was Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who became the fourteenth president of the Philippines in 2001.
The coffee etiquette of Marcos and his ministerial underlings, and the always eager to talk opposition leaders, was starkly different and reflective of the opinions they held of foreign journalists. If, and when, coffee was offered in a government office, it came with the suggestion to ‘help yourself’. Whereas opposition leaders would often reach for the coffee pot and proclaim without hesitation ‘Here, let me pour’.
The three former senators, and vocal Marcos critics, I had most contact with – Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, and Salvador Laurel – all had near identical coffee sharing rituals. I would arrive and would be shown to the den or the library of the senator’s home where coffee would be waiting, or moments later would be brought in and offered from a tray. It was relaxed informality. We sat and chatted, coffee cups in hand.
Only once did I share coffee with Carlos P. Romulo, the nation’s elder statesman and the acknowledged doyen of Philippine politics with an impressive catalogue of achievements unmatched in Philippine history. Born in 1899, Romulo had been Chief aide to General Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific during the Second World War; president of both the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council; and the country’s longest-serving foreign secretary and minister.
He retired in 1984, aged 85, one year after the assassination of former senator Benigno Aquino. Romulo was apparently shocked and disillusioned with the Marcos government but even though we met soon afterwards, he refused to discuss the matter. As always, he was jovial and quick witted. His wife, Beth Day Romulo brought in a pot of brewed coffee and left us alone to talk.
In the sun-filled back room of his home in Manila’s most exclusive suburb, we sat together at either end of a long couch, drinking coffee. Happy to reminisce, Carlos P. Romulo (he always insisted on the ‘P’) toyed with the cutlery on the tray before him. They were stolen, he said, as if just remembering. He laughed and confessed that he pocketed the knife, fork, spoon, and teaspoon when he was riding in a carriage of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Why? Because they were engraved with my initials ‘CPR’, he said.