Promising The Earth

The failure to realise promises of the people who won the bidding at the charity auction for the flood victims in central Vietnam at the “Miss Earth Contestants and Entrepreneurs” night on November 11 in HCM City has sparked a public outrage

The auction, broadcast live on television around the country and overseas, officially announced the winners’ names along with the amount bid which was over VND74 billion in total. It was expected that after deducting expenses and the original costs of auctioned items, the money would go to the HCM City Red Cross Chapter to distribute to the flood victims in central Vietnam. However, except for small donations that were not involved in the auction, the promises of tens of billions of dong were not honored by the auction winners.

The money never made it to the organizers and the HCM City Red Cross Chapter. The event organizers and the chapter could not even confirm who the winners were as they made their bids over the phone. The only successful bidder that they could be sure of was the director of Bao Long Company who was present in the auction room, and bought a wooden set of four sacred creatures at VND47.9 billion. For some reasons, he did a U-turn and did not pay the money he pledged but instead claimed to donate VND 1 billion.

Many netizens have pointed out the sheer lack of professionalism and preparation of the auction organizers. A serious auction team would have selected people with compassion and the financial ability to participate in the bidding and sent them the details about the authenticity of the items to be auctioned prior to the event. In addition, the organizers did not set out clear, specific provisions about the terms of participation and the obligation to honor commitment. They even allowed auction participants to bid via the telephone without identity checks. The organizers probably relied on the involvement of famous models and beauty queens as MCs to ensure the auction success!

The biggest tragedy is that an auction for a noble purpose has turned out to be a cruel joke. The organizers proved to be incompetent, but worse still the auction winners who broke their promises were just adding insult to injury for the flood victims, and toying with the trust of the television audience and the goodwill of the organizers. They made use of the auction for a brief mention of their company names on national TV and then backed away holding onto their purse-strings; or they regarded the charity auction as a joke. What’s funny about spitting in the face of charity work that brings relief to people who are suffering and homeless through no fault of their own. Have they ever thought about their compatriots in disaster or had a prick of conscience? These heartless souls should never be allowed to participate in a charity auction again. How could they take advantage of it and joke that way? They must be completely without a conscience, as a netizen has said.

This is not the first time that the winning bidders in charity auctions have reneged on their word and shirked their responsibility after appearing in front of the public and television camera. This time, the cheating and falsity has crossed the line. Decent people will not tolerate the despicable person who falsely reaches out a hand of support to the desperate flood victims only to pull it away when they try to take it.

Who can remain indifferent when they know that the flooding season has claimed nearly 200 lives and inflicted material damage worth tens of billions of dong? And still, there are people who can be so callous as to flirt with that pain.

Does that mean compassion these days has become the kind of virtue that you only read about and even a noble deed can be easily turned into a joke? I hope that it is not so, because so many people have come forward to voice their sympathy with those unfortunates, and expressed their outrage with the callers who used the charity auction as a free chance to polish their names, or just for fun.