Filipino media personality Jude Bacalso is trending following an altercation at a restaurant with some wait staff who reportedly called her ‘sir’.
Photos from the incident went viral on social media where the wait staff of the restaurant was seen standing as Bacalso sat.
Captions accompanying the post claimed Bacalso made the wait staff at the Cebu restaurant, Ulli’s Streets of Asia, stand for two straight hours for their mistake of calling her sir and constantly berated and attacked them.
The incident went massively viral and sparked heated online discussions.
Bacalso is a member of the LGBT community and allegedly took offense at being misgendered.
One social media user known as John Calderon shared a photo of what he allegedly saw.
Calderon said he saw a wait staff standing for about two hours and when he asked him why he replied: “I called him (Bacalso) sir,”
Calderon said he pulled the male server to the staff room where he broke down into tears and appeared to have suffered a panic attack.
“At that time, naay (there were) customers dining in and clearly saw that this server was standing for 2 hours but no one was even curious to know why and what happened. The other employees sa (of) Ulli’s already tried to console in behalf sa (of the) server but this guy Jude won’t leave the server because of the sole reason that the server misgendered the guy Jude Bacalso,” said Calderon.
After the incident went viral online, Bacalso issued an apology of sorts but denied making the server stand for two hours.
“It was a calm conversation between us…I did not demand that the waiter stand for the whole length of time, it was he who chose to stand in front of me as we waited for input from management, who I attempted to contact,” she said.
According to Bacalso, she had already sat down with the restaurant’s management to “quietly settle the matter.”
“I could have done with a little measure of kindness, sadly quite absent in the ruckus this has all unnecessarily created when it was made public without our knowledge.
“I made a personal apology to the group present, and requested if I may do so for the concerned waiter,” she added.