Chamber of Secrets

This week I attended an embassy reception, for the first time in months — not only because I like the ambassador, but also to find out if the Filipino party crowd had thinned since the flood control scandal erupted.

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

Sure enough, for the first time since I began attending such receptions ages ago, I didn’t spot any senator or prominent congressman in the crowd. No Cabinet secretary or well-known local government official either.

An analyst joked that no one wanted to be caught getting off a Mercedes Benz-Maybach S-Class backed by a security convoy of several identical black Benz SUVs. I actually spotted such a Benz fleet parked outside one house in Forbes Park just last week.

These days, folks avoid being seen strutting in Manolo Blahniks, holding a Hermes clutch while flashing a Patek Philippe wristwatch along with a huge Paraiba tourmaline ring.

If you can’t flaunt those ultra-luxe baubles at parties, why attend?

In the hotel basement parking area I spotted a Maserati and a Lexus. I wondered if those were among the luxury vehicles now being hunted down for seizure by the state.

All is not lost for the conspicuous consumers; they can still use their hard-stolen money to splurge on luxuries under the radar of the envious scrum. A public works employee, for example, has reportedly just plunked a cool P2 million in advance payment for dental implants.

But overall, the fun has been taken out of wealth flaunting by the obscenely rich.

This embarrassment over the ostentatious display of fantabulous wealth has descended on the country practically overnight.

It happened after the systematic looting of public coffers for personal purposes came to light, in the most public way, beginning with that privilege speech by Sen. Panfilo Lacson.