Salome Dy Working girl
MANILA, Philippines - What you see is not always what you get.
Salome Dy, a Filipino-Chinese socialite, always hears trivializing misconceptions about her: she’s out partying every night; she doesn’t work and relies solely on her wealth; and she does not eat to keep her form.
“But the truth is I hardly go to parties; I attend, at the most, two functions a month. Because I am a CPA, I am in charge of the accounting side of our hardware business. Lastly, I love to eat. I eat a lot. I like buffets,” Salome counters with a smile.
She grew up in a typical Filipino-Chinese family whose business was into retailing of office equipment. At 15, she worked for her father in the office. She was not the favored child, she says without rancor, “Because, in the brood of six, I suffered the second-child syndrome.” So Salome worked her way up, not for her parents to take notice of her but because “I just wanted to excel.”
A self-confessed nerd when she was young, she had a love affair with numbers. She was a Math geek, topping even her classes in Chinese Mathematics. “I was never the muse of our class but I would always represent the school in spelling contests.” At the University of Santo Tomas where she obtained her Accounting degree, she graduated cum laude.
“My ‘boring’ life ended when I met my husband Ali,” she says, her eyes filled with kliegs. “Ali is outgoing and fun to be with. When I married him, I knew what I wanted: I want to be happy. And when you’re happy, it shows in what you do.”
Yes, Salome, considered a leader among her friends in the Filipino-Chinese community of Manila, goes out to parties but she is always under the watchful eye of her police: her only daughter Stephanie, 12. “I love it that she is very demanding of my time. She sends me text messages when I am out, ‘Mama, can you escape the party now and go home?’ I, of course, oblige.”
Salome is always well put together, mostly in clothes by local designers. “I wear imported labels but I sincerely love and support everything local,” she says, brandishing the creations of fashion designer Rhett Eala and accessories designer Ann Ong, for example.
“You see me dressed up now but if you see me in our warehouse, you would not recognize me. Yes, believe me, I also work in our warehouse. I wear a loose shirt and (a pair of) loose jeans, sweating it out with our workers packing valves, fittings and industrial fans to be shipped to Visayas and Mindanao.”
But after a day of toil at the warehouse, Salome knows how to go back to her glamorous self. She dons a dress, goes to party and eats to her heart’s content. But she also knows how to be a good wife, a doting mother, a conscientious worker, a loving friend.
“I am happy with what I have. When you are happy, it shows. Contentment, according to one saying, is not how much you have but how little you need. I am content with my life,” she says.
Salome comes in a package that is so glamorous it is easy to dismiss her as just that. But many times, the eyes deceive. And the real worth of the package is not revealed until it is unwrapped.
Photography by JO ANN BITAGCOL • Creative direction by LUIS ESPIRITU JR. • Styling by BANG MARTINEZ • Jewelry by MILADAY JEWELS • Asymmetrical ruffled top by MSGM Milano and denim hand-painted skirt and denim-colored hand-painted dress by RHETT EALA
