Rape cases often boil down to a her-word-against-his and a his-word-against-hers battle. As if that weren’t enough, in the Philippines, the pervading primitivism brought about by our cultural baggage routinely adds a thick wrapper of moronic drama around rape, reducing the facts-and-logic component of most rape cases to an insignificant nucleus within a thick morass of “public scrutiny”.
As such, the only real contribution of the public scrutiny and “analysis” that sensational rape cases attract (all brokered at a profit of course by the Philippine Media) is premature judgment. The kind of trial-by-media and premature judgment we have become renowned for in such instances is a manifestation of a two-fold psychosis that our society suffers from as outcomes of (1) our inability to get over our four-century subjugation by colonial powers and (2) our narrow dogmatic regard for human sexuality.
The first plays upon that all-too-familiar vicitim mentality that continues to afflict us to this day. It is succinctly encapsulated by Ishmael Ahab in the following excerpt from his recent article:
Soldiers of the American Government, since they stepped on our country, raped and abused many Filipinas. Accounts of rape during the Philippine-American war is not lacking and up until now the American Government did not issue any official statement seeking forgiveness for their brutality during that war.
I dunno, but I recall how one of the Philippine blogosphere’s more astute commentators once quipped how “we cannot keep what we cannot defend“; a principle that can be extended to include the toothless way by which we keep raw and open the wounds of our hapless people’s “victimisation” in the various battles fought by foreign armies on Philippine soil. As often is the case, it begs the usual question:
Where are the results?
Consider this question in light of how the armies and agents of the Jewish Nation continue to hunt down Nazi war criminals all over the world — often rooting them out from undocumented blissful obscurity in some banana republic and dragging them kicking and screaming to court. It is the kind of conviction only seen in a people who have a clear definition of what they stand for to sustainably fuel their efforts. Ningas-cogon anyone? It is in this light that we learn to appreciate the utter flaccidity of The Filipino “Laban” Rhetoric that infests our modern literature. Though while we continue to go around stomping our feet about this and that instance of “injustice” against our hapless lot, the reality is we as a people simply lack the cojones exercise our prerogatives.
All Filipinos have to show for after all the “L” shaped finger waving from the lofty moral highground we imagine ourselves to stand upon is judgement over the way the Big Bad American, the Mayabang (arrogant) Kastila, and the Siba (greedy) Filipino-Chinese “victimise” Juan de la Cruz.
And so we wave our clenched fists in the air (in the tired old cliche’d way we tend to do) and scream “It is time for us to stand for the Filipina. Let us make rape history” (as if rape ever will be). But let us look underneath the slogan and examine what underpins it. When we invoke the kind of poetic license we learn at WanBol Emementary School and regard the oxymoron that is “The Filipina” we see Maria Clara. But when we take stock of current popular perceptions and sentiments including the sort of “tourists” the Philippines tends to attract, we see something else.
As Seinfeld is wont to say, what’s up with that?
What’s up with all this brings us to the second aspect of our collective psychosis. We continue to use an old caricature to guide our ideas of what the quintessential Filipino Woman is. In reality, the Filipina is now shaped by an agglomeration of various modern-day influences. Central to this is the hypocrisy of a double standard that favours the Filipino male when it comes to infidelity and premarital intimacy.
And so the irony continues to escape the famously vacuous “national debate” — how we as a people have actually failed to protect our own women from the very demons we wave our fists at in flaccid anger. Consider that we as a nation now rely on the armies of female workers we send overseas to fund our appetite for cheap trinkets and dessicated packaged food imported from China and Indonesia. We routinely see mothers separated for years from their children and call them “heroes”. Our moronic dogmatism routinely deprives the most helpless of women from real and modern methods of safe contraception.
Our sick fascination with rape (when it should be seen for what it is — a crime for which justice brought about by due process is dispensed swiftly) and the accompanying “disgust” we relish even as we soak up every little morsel of hearsay surrounding each case, says a lot about us as a people.
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I was chatting with a Pinay working at a Hair Cuttery (a chain of haircut/hair dressing salon), and her insight :
Divorce won’t ever become law in Pinas for the foreseeable future. What under-employed husband will want to relinquish legal claim on the salary of his wife working abroad? Without her salary, he can’t afford to send his children to school!!!
thought you’re a UP graduate? You went to a salon? Hahaha. Okey. Forgiveable except that you just used somebody’s idea to buttress your own. Wrong form, my man.
We have lost our credibility for future cases of rapes. It is because
of the Nicole-Smith case. It turned everything upside down in the
justice system.
You throw away your case for U.S. $2,000 and a Green Card Visa to U.S. The dignity of the country was compromised by the event. But,
it happened. It hurts the Filipino. Yet, it happened.
Sa tingin ko, hindi na itinapon ang kaso pero talagang talo si Nicole. Iyong mga ebidensiya, hindi kayang i-convict si guwapong kano. Kulang ang pag-ayaw-kuno ni Nicole at sobra ang pag-kutsi kaya iyon ang nangyari.
Ngayon, pagmasdan si Vanessa. Walang ebidensiya, hanggang news-conference na lang. Mas malupit na kaso, iyong sa Astralyano, pero bakit Gabriela ay ubod ng tahimik, wala kasing sundalong nadamay.
question maria…if that is the case…that Nicole’s case is weak…why did it pass the lower court? surely, it was not the intention of the judge to convict Smith with just a flimsy reason? or the lack of evidence? and besides, Gabriela was the one who funded the presscon so they’re not silent.
Got my eyes scanning for signs of the lynch mob congregating on Alec Baldwin’s Filipina Mail Order Bride comment.
O ano, walang palag, dahil kapareho tayo ng Russia – nation of mail order brides. :lol:
Bong, naman! Walang palag, at least we’re in league of Russian beauties, MI DATING! :)
hi renato,
you’re in the league of Russian beauties? are you now saying you’re actually a woman disguised as a man? Wow.
bahala ng tawaging mail order bride wag lang katulong :lol:
mantakin mo yan men :lol:
Collective psychosis of the Philippines = Nichole. The victim. But the victim is finding it hard to accept the identify the rapist, because it appears to be dear old “Dad”, the government. People are starting to wake up to the fact that it is not actually the US after all, ‘though that big arrogant thug makes a pretty fine subject for accusation. And when the people stop hiking up their collective skirt, perhaps they will go so far as to lop off the weenies trying to take advantage of them. Collective psychosis = Lorena Bobbit. Corruption will end forthwith.
Joe
I offer on-line dating service, mail-order-bride, OFWs, HK servants, Nurses from “some med school in the Philippines”. I also sell acrid fake OFW perfume, Manny Pacquiao shirts and collectibles such as ZTE contract papers and FFCruz contract signed in the toilet.
Xoom-zoom Xpress padala your foreign exchange in minutes. Balikbayan in various irregular sizes no problem.
Affidavit, notary, timbang ng lata atsaka bote, hatid-sundo sa airport. Very Cheap
MasterCard, Visa and AmericanExpress accepted expired or not.
so, you’re the online pimp? Good. What’s the name of your online business? Pacifico sex online? Did Dr. Hayden Kho called you up already? Or, is it, Gloria?
this entry is a trying hard intellectual piece devoid of any substance. time to fly! bye. so much expectation from a pseudo-intellectual, oh, well, it’s simple really.
Dude, don’t tell me you’ve now taken up the mantle of becoming the Tililing Rampage king here? :D
Stidi ka lang dyan. You’re making a fool of yourslef stomping around all over the place acting like people owe you quick responses ora-mismo to your comments.
Get a life. Or better yet, get some time to think things through carefully before you assert stuff like some kind of spoiled brat. And come up with arguments of substance rather than making summary one-line dismissals of people’s assertions as you do above and across all the other articles you post here.
You say you want a “New Philippines” and propose your “New Philippine Revolution”, do you? Well, the way you are behaving here comes across, ironically, like the Old Philippines I have come to know over the last several decades. Someone begs to differ to you, or someone comes up with an assertion and point-of-view contrary to yours and you go off on that renowned Tililing Rampage that counts a few other “bloggers” among its illustrious practitioners.
The only thing worse than the fact of the Philippines being a big embarassing hairy outcome of ill-thought-out “actions” is the fact that the Philippines is ruled by a bunch of dick-heads with the kind of disposition YOU exhibit here.
Seems like you learned NOTHING from this whole trouble you got into with Reyna Elen a while back.
Deal with reality for a change, dude.
And, yes:
It’s simple, really™ — though not for the small-minded.
well, yes, i’m a hard headed man. I don’t really go down that easily, especially if I engage in people like you. It’s simple, really. Easy to engage simpletons like you and shrill queens and kings like all the others.
well, i think you’re just lonely man, holed up in that dark cubicle, being bashed by your Australian boss for such inane, archaic and stupid ideas which does not work. Reason why rational people just allow you to rampage every site in the internet because you’re a hopeless case already.
about that episode…you probably prayed that I’m just fade away. well, I don’t intend to. I’ve picked fights before with people more worthy than you. It’s just that, it’s time to end the BeniGno Stupid Really (BSR).
by the way, I’m again lighting my cigarette….hehehe….Winston Lights anyone?
By the way BeniGNO, cited that unnamed one? Want to hide under his pants? Kala mo ba, natakot ako? I’m just too busy doing my own thing and working that’s the reason why I forgot all about FV. But, when you ganged up on DJB and did those under the belt, over the top, ad hominem attacks and simply, binaboy ninyo FV, I thought it’s time to do some damage. It’s simple, really.
So, go ahead. I have some time today to engage a low life like you. Pasasayahin kita today. Cigarette, anyone?
by the way, this time naman, wala namang sumbungan….ilan sa inyo nagsumbong dahil napikon ko before, tsk,tsk,tsk! yung masasaktan ngayon, be a man naman. walang sumbungan ke Nick, k?
Hehehehe! Meron ngang nag-accuse sa akin na si The High Priest of Smokes daw ako…well….I’ll give them what they want…I’ll be worst than the High Priest, hahahaha!
so, let’s start the war!
by the way, BeniGno, post ka naman ng bagong entry. Dun tayo mag engage.
one piece of advice, BeniGNO—sakit ba knowing the truth that your entries do not even matter in our the rich literature? It’s simple really–no sense. Mahabang walang sinasabi kundi alam na ng lahat about rape. What a stupid entry, I might say.
“..adds a thick wrapper of moronic drama around rape, reducing the facts-and-logic component of most rape cases to an insignificant nucleus within a thick morass of “public scrutiny”
Meaning—rape is being sensationalized. It’s simple really. Yet, hard for those trying hard to be pekeng intellectual.
To benign0 and Patricio:
You should both check out this entry for an example of a
high-content intellectual blogpost .
It talks about the new and change.
But it does not define:
1. What is the As-Is state?
2. What is the To-Be state?
3. What are the best steps needed to take the As-Is state to the To-Be state?
For all you know, change could be a deterioration from the trek towards a meritocracy and backsliding to aristocracy/thought police/muttawa/padre damaso times – and rhetoric can make that look “new”.
what’s worst than rape is when a fellow Filipino writes pieces that demean Pinoy identity.
Pat:
It depends on what’s being written about.
If we don’t send chimays to HK – people from HK wouldn’t make a deduction
If we don’t send pokpoks to JP – people from JP wouldn’t make a deduction
If we don’t send nannies to EU – people from EU wouldn’t make a deduction
If the content is factual, as the adage goes – where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Tsk Patricio, temper temper. You keep saying that my writing lacks substance and that I am “stupid” without really being able to express specifically why you think so point by point.
What is this “battle” you are looking for? A war of baseless name calling and labelling? Or a real discussion involving an intelligent exchange of ideas and logical arguments?
It’s up to you dude. So far you’ve exhibited none of the latter.
- :D
In far north Queensland about 10 years ago, a Torres Strait Islander was accused of raping a white Aussie male parking attendant (as caught by security cameras). Now that case attracted a lot of media attention and protests from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander community. The local bullies (for those not familiar with Australian English that means “newspapers”) made much fuss about it and with premature judgement.
I am pointing this out because Benigno doesn’t know much about the implications of rape in Australia or anywhere (that’s why he can’t pontificate on rape in the Philippines) and that I believe he should leave the comfy confines of Sydney and go to the Top End!
Is blackhama at 6:17PM again that logic of “…he who has not been poor can not dare speak for the poor!!!”? With this logic, then environmentalist-this or military-guy-zzat ain’t qualified to talk about COMELEC automation because they have never programmed such machines, or that only Erap, Cory, FVR can critique GMA because all else have never been president.