I have been seeing this picture in the media being used as an attack on Philippine president Roberto Duterte – who like Donald Trump is a man of the people just trying to make The Philippines Great Again, where’s the hat?
In defense of President Duterte I have to relate this as a personal matter.
That shirt is called a Guayabera poop, or an older term Cuban Wedding shirt. I have been wearing them now for the past 10 years especially to any dress up situation like funerals and weddings. White ones are the most formal, but they also come in pastel blue, faded yellow and black. I wear only the black finding them the greatest shirt in the world not only for the four pockets, no tuck-in but also as the best belly hiding shirt around. I wear them so often that I have three in case the others are in the washer or dryer. FOUR POCKETS!
They are extremely ubiquitous in nearby Mexico though Guayabera shirts are hard to find even here in Houston (I have found them only at Kohl’s online.) In fact they are seldom seen here because the cultures that wear them in their home countries don’t want to stand out as immigrants here. For good reason. The only time I see them worn is on roaming musicians and waiters in Mexican restaurants.
Guayabera shirts are the substitute for coat and ties in the warmer climates all over world, mostly worn in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, South America, much of Africa, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and the Philippines. So most all white collar male employees in much of the most populated parts of the world wear them daily, billions and billions and billions of people. My issue with this is American’s parochial nature.
Wait a minute, let me count, four pockets and 23 buttons!