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Why the Internet Is So Pissed About How This Cebu Resort Treated a Child with Special Needs

Why the Internet Is So Pissed About How This Cebu Resort Treated a Child with Special Needs

Dec 9, 2020   •   Kyzia Maramara

Plantation Bay Resort & Spa is in the middle of a crisis, one that every other establishment on this planet needs to learn from. When a mother and her six-year-old child with special needs visited the Cebu resort last weekend, personnel asked them to tone their noise down. That by itself sounds harmless, so where did it all go wrong?

 

What happened?

Mai Pages took to Facebook to share her unpleasant experience at Plantation Bay Resort & Spa. Pages shared that when something excites her special needs son, Fin — like going into the water — he tends to “squeal with delight” indicating that he is happy. But lifeguards from Plantation Bay came to warn her twice about keeping the noise down.

“I tried hushing him and at one point tried to cover his mouth. But then I realized this is so wrong? This isn’t right at all!” Pages wrote in her post.

“It’s a discriminating experience,” she continues. “My Fin is a happy child. He has autism. He is special. Very special! I will never consider staying here ever again. No luxury of this proportion can make this experience okay because that is not what we need.”

 

Plantation Bay owner’s insensitive replies to the negative review

Pages also posted the same thing on Plantation Bay’s Trip Advisor page. The resort’s resident shareholder, Manny Gonzales, replied to the negative review with a lengthy four-point post. “For your information, uncontrolled shouting is not a symptom of autism,” the comment began. “Google ‘Autism’ and verify this for yourself.”

“Therefore this parent is most likely deliberately lying, or has been given an incorrect diagnosis of autism when what the child merely has is a lack of discipline due to simple parental neglect,” he said, implying that he knows Pages’ son more than she does. This first part of his comment has been edited from the original as of writing.

Gonzales also reiterated the importance of the hotel’s noise-making policy. “You cannot relax if people around you are constantly screaming. Every customer should be respected, not just one parent and one child,” he wrote.

“While we are sorry that we are not the right resort for this parent and child, we hope that in the future other parents who want their children to scream constantly and bother other guests, will do their homework and choose another resort, one which doesn’t care about the 99% of guests who want to relax in peace and quiet,” he continued.

 

Gonzales tries to mansplain autism

Netizens were also left angered by a reply Gonzales left on a Facebook comment that said Plantation Bay’s response to the issue was “disgusting, immoral, and very ignorant.”

“I am not an expert on autism and neither are you,” he began. “What I do know is that [autism] is rare; if we hear about it a lot it’s because many parents would rather just put a lifelong brand on their child than do the hard work of paying parental attention.”

“Shouting has no relation to autism (on the contrary, autistic children tend to be silent and not show emotion),” said Gonzales.

“If this mother truly has a special child, shouldn’t she have done some research about the policies of a resort she planned to take her child to?”

 

What’s wrong with what he said?

It’s perfectly understandable for hotels and resorts to request its guests to tone down their noise but Gonzales’ lack of empathy and blatant attempts to insult Pages was uncalled for. He not only generalized those with autism by saying he knows “autistic children tend to be silent and not show emotion,” he also told the mother she possibly misdiagnosed her child. Uhh, we’re pretty sure she knows her child very well without having to “Google autism.” And if his basis for all his knowledge on the matter is Google, what does he actually know?

 

After things went out of hand, Plantation Bay issues apology

Because of all the backlash on social media, Gonzales had to post an apology on Plantation Bay’s Facebook page. Curiously, the three-paragraph statement read more as a non-apology if anything (talk about #sorrynotsorry). Although Gonzales admitted that it was “wrong to question the mother’s motives,” he still insisted that the hotel’s noise policy should be followed at all times for the safety of its guests. This is after he outrightly castigated “the mother” and heavily insinuated that she had her son’s diagnosis all wrong.

Autism groups speak up

Autism Strong Philippines recommended that Plantation Bay “should conduct sensitivity training for all personnel when dealing with PWAs (Persons With Autism).” Autism Society Philippines called Gonzales’ response as “shamefully ignorant of what the autism spectrum is — even going as far as to shame the parent and question the veracity of the child’s diagnosis.”

 

Netizens dig up Gonzales’ previous issues

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), this isn’t the first time Gonzales shifted the blame to point it back to the person who made a complaint.

Netizens’ FBI skills undearthed his response last year to complaints of food poisoning at Plantation Bay. The snarky response even went as far as to suggest that the guests got food poisoning from their poor hygiene (the third point is too much to handle, honestly). As if the first four points aren’t enough for your eyes to bulge out of their sockets, Gonzales continues to say (we imagine him thumping his chest) they aren’t afraid of bad publicity and they’ve got millions to spare to defend their reputation. “Can you each afford to spend a few million defending against our defamation suit?”

We’re all for that tough-as-nails won’t-take-any-crap attitude he’s got going on but when it comes to customer service, he’s got it all wrong. The customer might not always be right, but it also isn’t the owner’s right to go insulting everyone who complains about their service. He’s running a business that capitalizes on hospitality! The least Gonzales could’ve done is settle the matter privately. Or enrolled himself in a training for customer service and hospitality years ago.

 

The wrath of the internet is unleashed

This horrible incident will serve as a lesson for other hotels and resorts on how to treat their guests with sensitivity. The internet also dug up Gonzales’ “impressive” resume which goes to show that you can get pretty far in your career but still remain ignorant and uneducated on the most important things in life.

That being said…

 

What do you think about Plantation Bay’s discrimination issue?


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Kyzia spends most of her time capturing the world around her through photos, paragraphs, and playlists. She is constantly on the hunt for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, and a great paperback thriller to pair with it.

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