By Francis Baraan IV
Filipinos love to sing. We sing in karaoke bars, we sing in department stores’ appliance centers when testing out the latest Magic Sing model, we sing along to artists during concerts, we sing in the bathroom while taking showers, we sing inside our houses when celebrating birthdays with family and bosom friends, and we sing in cheap resorts with karaoke machines located within an earshot away from—or even next to—upscale, high-end resorts and establishments.
I get it. Filipinos love to sing their hearts out–the great, the good, the tone-deaf–Filipinos who can really SANG; Filipinos who can decently carry a tune; and Filipinos who think they can sing, especially when they’re drunk as fack.
Inside the house, there’s already too much noise in the world caused by a deluge of viral, pandemic-related news. We are also already literally bombarded with too much noise by our own next-door subdivision neighbors hogging the microphone from dusk till dawn singing a medley of Aegis songs. And we don’t need to add more to those. Before, others would pay for others to sing. Today, people would pay others to just zip it when they’re, especially when on vacation. Resorts should therefore realize the value a videoke-free environment these days. If guests do insist on singing, it should at least be in a sound-proof room.
Here are four (4) reasons why:
1. NOT ALL RESORTS AND SINGERS ARE CREATED EQUAL. In most popular tourist beach destinations, we see resorts in Boracay, Palawan, Siargao, La Union, Subic, and Dasol sometimes literally just a wall apart from each other. And some of these neighboring resorts—whether beachfront or not—sometimes have business models that are different totally from each other. The more upscale ones do not allow singing, while the cheaper ones sometimes do. The more upscale ones do not allow day trippers, while the cheaper ones allow them.
2. NOISE POLLUTION. When you want some rest and relax on your vacation, you expect some peace and quiet when you arrive. There is nothing worse than hearing someone singing horribly while you are having your poolside mojito break.
3. MENTAL HEALTH MEANS FAMILY TIME. As a “frontliner” hotelier, I personally ask our guests at our resort their reason for coming. Their reasons are only usually either or both of the two: for family time and/or for mental health. Since lockdown, everyone has been cooped up inside their houses for far too long. And when travel restrictions began easing up, people have seen travel and staycations not as leisure time but as a necessary tool for spending quality time with the family outside their own homes—and for health rejuvenation. Imagine investing time and energy just on acquiring the documents in order to have a much-needed holiday only to hear a cacophony of tone-deaf frustrated singers having a mini-concert next door all at the same time. People book resorts for a mental break—not to have a mental breakdown.
4. COVID19 PREVENTION.
As a licensed physician, my co-President of the Homestays and Resorts Association of Dasol, Pangasinan, my brother, hotelier and co-owner of Sirom Beach House, Dr. Amadeus Baraan, told me that resorts across the Philippines should ban videoke singing for practical, COVID19 prevention reasons. First of all, you do not know if someone is a carrier or not. Rapid tests can also yield false-negative results. When you sing, studies have shown that it can spread a lot of droplets and aerosol. That alone should be enough reason to ban it during this time.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we should be more cognizant of the fact that these days, travel time is quiet, family, precious time for all. Unlike before the pandemic when people could just book a flight to Timbuktu, plan a trip to Paris the next day, or drive to a resort from Manila to Pangasinan without going through all the required tests and applying for the various IATF travel permits, today, one has to pass through so many bureaucratic hoops just to be able to get from point A to point B.
Now more than ever, we have to be more mindful of the things we do. Droplets of the COVID19 virus could cause many problems for others. Others may be asymptomatic carriers and not know it. So, it is incumbent upon resort establishments and each individual to take all the necessary precautions to help contain the spread of the Coronavirus, and prevent yet another outbreak from happening.
Yes, singing is important; some may argue that it is for mental health, too – that it is also another form of bonding with friends and family. And I agree with those arguments 100%. I am not saying we should stop singing altogether.
Nobody is stopping anybody from singing –as long as singing happens within a setting that does jeopardize your life and the lives of others, or at the expense of others’ idea of universally accepted quality — quiet —time.