After much backlash online, the Cubao mall involved in the Gretchen Diez incident yesterday finally addressed the controversy. But netizens don’t think it’s as sincere as it should be.
In a statement posted on social media, its property manager extended their apologies to Gretchen, the LGBTQ+ community, and the people who were generally affected by what happened. They emphasized that the mall management wasn’t aware of what the janitress did and they already notified the agency that employed her.
— Araneta City (@AranetaCity) August 14, 2019
They also claimed they weren’t aware of what was happening at the time. “None of these actions had been relayed beforehand to the management, nor did we have knowledge of the same as it was happening, for us to do something,” they said in a statement. They also clarified that handcuffing Gretchen was not their doing.
Yesterday afternoon, Gretchen was called out by a mall’s janitress when she was entering the women’s restroom. She was taken to the administrative office, where she was able to record a Facebook Live of staff berating her. She was later brought to a police station where she was handcuffed and detained until late in the evening.
Gretchen said the janitress and the mall staff already apologized, but they refused to release a public statement to the media. She also said she still plans to file a case against the mall staff for violating QC’s anti-discrimination ordinance.
“Management makes no distinctions between customers here, and the LGBTQ community has always been welcome,” the statement read. “We hope this isolated incident, clearly a mistake committed by an agency worker not organic to our company, does not define our lasting good relations with all our customers through decades of operations. We have continuously been training our frontliners and other personnel in customer care and proper response to complaints and issues.”
Meanwhile, netizens are calling out the mall for allegedly placing the blame on the janitress and not being accountable for how their staff acted.
Self-proclaimed ally ang @AranetaCenter ng LGBTQ+ community pero hugas-kamay agad sa responsibility to educate your employees kasi agency worker (read: contractual) 'yung janitress—who more or less has little to no access to SOGIE sensitivity education. https://t.co/kIAtC8lpnu
— Philip Jamilla (@pmjamilla) August 14, 2019
washing hands
"was not filed by mall managemant"
"personal decision of ms. ganal"
"nor did we have any knowledge of the same"
eh sino ang nagdala sa kanya sa presinto?
ano ang nakalog sa incident report ng security nyo? this was carried out by multiple members of your staff— 𝐊𝐔𝐊𝐎𝐎𝐊 (@karlodomingo) August 14, 2019
Hindi kayo aware when it was happening? That's weird because the whole internet knew about it. Even our senator. It didn't just happen for 30 minutes. Just say you had to meet for damage control before issuing some pathetic, hugas-kamay statement and go.
— Jai Cabajar (@jaicabajar) August 14, 2019
What did you think of the public apology?
Photo courtesy of Pexels
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