Donnalyn Bartolome drew flak once again after sharing a birthday-themed shoot in the slums making it a ‘kanto-style’ birthday celebration on August 11.
In her vlog which was shot last July, the birthday party had monoblocs for chairs, traditional Filipino party games such as pabitin and limbo rock. They also ate street food items during the birthday.
But the celebration did not sit well with some netizens.
”Using kanto aesthetic merely as an aesthetic without shedding light and calling for action over the financial insecurity, job precarity, and overall sickness that comes with it does not only maintain the unequal status quo – aestheticizing it also contributes to this inequality,” a sociologist on Twitter said.
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“Instead of pretending to be poor through a lavish kanto themed party, why not understand what it is to be poor and find ways and means to assist. To be poor is not something to celebrate by the rich. It is insensitive. Just saying,” Supreme Court Justice Marvic Leonen tweeted.
Bartolome defended her birthday celebration saying it is more than a concept.
“So I relived the times when I was just starting out on my birthday last month July 9, just like nung time na walang-wala pa ako. Pero nandyan ‘yung mga taong mahal ako kahit butas-butas ang shorts at murang sapatos at tsinelas lang ang kaya kong bilhin,” she wrote.
