A Rolls Royce on display at a car show in this file photo. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

MANILA – Despite the country’s third-world image, the Philippines is home to a lot of “crazy rich” people who have been living the luxe life.

Culture researcher Augusto “Toto” Gonzalez made this statement during his recent “Crazy Rich Flips” talk at the Leon Gallery in Makati, where he shared several stories about the Filipino elite.

“Long before these Asian brothers of ours got into this luxe and free-spending life, the Filipinos were already at it since God knows when,” he said. “Probably since the 1800s. It’s all very well-documented and quite inarguable.”

“Of course we don’t discount the fact that yes, there is staggering (financial) difficulty around. But on the other side of that, there has never been more money in Manila than today. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but people are spending, spending, spending,” he added.

Proof of this, Gonzalez said, is that the Rolls-Royce Manila dealership continues to do surprisingly well: “According to the grapevine, Willie Soong sold a lot of these high, high, high luxury cars in the past months, and sometimes he doesn’t know who the buyers are… It seems that Filipino pockets are opening up those long hidden trenches and coughing up the dough.”

He also noted that the Leon Gallery, which has sold paintings worth millions of pesos in the past years, has become a “playground for the Filipino mega-rich.”

“To them, it is nothing to decorate their walls with paintings worth millions of pesos. There is all this money and people are just casually buying to put these in their houses. It’s not strange anymore that a teacup goes for P15 million and chairs go for P5 million apiece… I have no doubt that in a few years, we just might be showing the rest of Asia what it is like to live [the high life].”

‘WE DID IT BEFORE SINGAPORE’

Manila’s elite have been living a life of luxury decades before Singapore and even South Korea, according to Gonzalez.

He recalled a story from a female “crazy rich” friend who married a construction magnate in Singapore in the 1970s: “She would go to Singapore and [she would be bored because] walang chika. She had very plain-looking in-laws and there were no nice hotels, there were no nice restaurants, and there was no big grocery to go to. So she was always itching to go back to Manila to do her thing.”

“She was telling me how deeply hurt she was in the coming years, when she saw Singapore rise and saw Manila deteriorate. She said, ‘My God, nauna tayo. We were first and we were so bongga compared to these people.’ That just shows the tide of time.”

‘CRAZY RICH’ SPENDING

For “crazy rich” Filipinos, spending P10 million for a birthday party is nothing, according to Gonzalez.

He said this is particularly true for the Filipino-Chinese, who “set the bar” when it comes to parties.

“A few years ago, there is this Chinese dowager who celebrated her birthday, and the rumors were the blooms that were brought into Manila especially for that party amounted to something like P25 million,” he said. “That is a little less than half a million dollars.”

As for household staff, Gonzalez said he personally knows people in Manila who employ a hundred people to take care of their homes.

“Some families I know in Forbes Park and Dasmariñas Village and all these posh places, they have a household staff of a hundred,” he said. “A lot of these houses are very well-staffed, and they have house managers to boot.”

Others, meanwhile, even have a garage that can house at least 100 cars, with 24/7 air-conditioning.

“I know a gentleman who has a garage for 120 cars,” Gonzalez revealed. “And it’s fully air-conditioned 24/7 because the car gets naiinitan… I guess it’s a guy thing.”

HERMES, CHANEL IN PARTY LOOT BAGS

She may have been the center of a massive corruption scandal in the Philippines, but Gonzalez said Janet Lim Napoles was, at some point, considered a “crazy rich” hostess by Manila’s elite.

According to him, his socialite friends would be excited to attend Napoles’ parties, which had loot bags filled with designer goods.

“Her loot bags were something else. There were Hermes bags, Chanel jewelry, and other top-rated things. Sometimes, she would raffle off cars,” Gonzalez revealed.

“I would remember a few girls, very rich girls who would say, ‘Her parties are fun, grabe!’ For all that happened, Janet Lim Napoles was an acknowledged ‘crazy rich’ hostess.”

A LAVISH WEDDING IN ILOCOS

Gonzalez believes that “crazy rich” spending reached its peak during the Marcos era, headed by former First Lady Imelda Marcos.

Among the biggest events during the 21-year period was the wedding of Irene Marcos to Greggy Araneta in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte during the early 1980s.

While Irene only wanted a simple, intimate wedding, her mother had something grander in mind, said Gonzalez: “It was a major production and many people were drafted to carry it out. You had the whole troop of the CCP go to Sarrat and reconfigure the town to be a 15th century colonial town. That meant decorating the houses and outfitting the whole populace to make it look like during that time, and hundreds of school teachers were recruited to make paper flowers to line the rows.”

“One of the most interesting things during that wedding was they had floral arrangements in ice, which is an idea of Don Luis (Araneta, Greggy’s father)… These were placed in strategic portions of the church to cool the guests,” he added.

And perhaps another “crazy rich” moment during the wedding, noted Gonzalez, was the time the carpet had to be changed twice during the ceremony to accommodate both Irene and her mother.

“Imelda wanted a red carpet, but Irene wanted a green carpet. So what happened was… during the day they rolled out the red carpet. But as soon as Madame [Imelda] left, they removed the red one and put out the green one, which Irene wanted,” he said.