The President Should Have Been First — Rape Culture in the Philippines as told by a seventeen year-old

Jecko Sanjorjo
Jul 21, 2017 · 10 min read

Whether you acknowledge it or not, rape culture has found its way in our country in a prevailing manner. It manifests in every region, in every province, in every city and homes. It does not even fail to be recognized. Instead, it waves its banner with pride, because apparently, rape is okay. Rape can be your perfect topic for jokes. Rape is defended. Rape is condemnable, a thing we can easily point on to people for blame. Rape is misunderstood, and the culture in which it presides takes advantage of that decaying idea that rape is… well… worthy of congratulations because it takes “balls to rape somebody when you know you’re going to die.”

(But rapists don’t die in your country, Mr. President.)

Rape culture is defined as the normalization and radicalization of sexually abusive behaviours and actions in a society or an environment. It allows sexual offenses in all of its degrees to happen. As what my previous teacher in Grammar likes to put it, it is where people of bent moralities and twisted beliefs “do either of the following defence responses, or a combination of all: snub, mock, reject, or justify” when their vindictive hobbies are detested and criticized. Egos and reputations are hurt. It is rather odd that, if you allow yourself to think about it, such behaviours be prevalent in a world that we like to believe is founded on compassion; on the very basic human rights and the morality we often so value every time we’re in the face of our god. In this case, we definitely practice what we preach.

To set a simple and recent example:

(I have spoken about this issue multiple times already on different occasions. The anger that refuses to subside inside me still burns over the catastrophic event of this recent news, and I could only help ebb away the growing flame through writing and speaking about this issue. Knowing what is wrong about it helps, of course, but I’ll let you be the judge of this uncanny event.)

In an online article published by ABS-CBN news, Noven Belleza, the winner of the prestigious singing competition called Tawag ng Tanghalan, has recently been bailed out from prison because his case was just sexual assault. (Not that two important words: sexual, and assault.) In the evening after a Vice Ganda concert in Cebu, Belleza was arrested by local police. The case? Rape. (Take note of that word, too: rape.) The victim, who, of course, is hidden in utmost anonymity, is also a contestant in the contest, and had reported on the local police that Belleza was the culprit of her rape. According to her, in a hotel room in Cebu, Belleza inserted his fingers in her vagina. (Whether it was by force or not, the truth is still well hidden and is yet to be proven. But to side with the victim’s perspective, what could she possibly obtain from this if we are to believe it was a set-up? Jealousy over his victory?)

If we may disregard the content and focus more about the context, the process in which the case has taken its course, we can piece out a thought. As I read through this online article, I found myself wondering: In the case of sexual offenses, what is the difference of a penis from a finger, considering it’s not consensual, therefore we may call it rape? Because as I scroll further down, the coals of my heart began to gather its embers. According to reports, Belleza’s case was lowered down to sexual assault, having been originated from rape. The reason, as argued by his lawyer, is that “rape” involves the insertion of a penis, and “sexual assault” by fingers.

I would love to give slow claps for the lawmakers that established these definitions. It’s a wonderful analogy: rape is to penis, while sexual assault is to fingers. It makes perfect sense, really, that we see it this way. To emphasize its absurdity, the escape for the case for sexual assault only amounts to a whopping Php 120,000. Noven Belleza, the victor of a prize money from a live and televised competition, could easily sneak out and pay that small lump of money. Easy as the wind breezes, but while he’s temporarily owing the position of innocence, an investigation is under its way.

The likely probability for Belleza is either he’s proven innocent, or it’s prision mayor (six to twelve years of imprisonment). Which, to be honest, does not suffice.

I don’t particularly care for the story at hand because it can easily be rendered and proven. What unsettles me the most is the uncharacterized way it was executed; the justice in which the so-called victim has been forced to endure. It is so easy to empathize if you try, and it does not cost a single sweat to internalize what unfolded in this criminal case. The senseless categorization of the things we use to forcibly penetrate genital or anal orifices can determine whether someone is raped or just sexually assaulted is both insulting, twisted, and inhumane.

Rape is rape. Period. It should never be categorized with the basis of the object used for forced and unwanted penetration. It’s a concept I’ve easily taken in and used whenever the chance to discuss it comes. The thing that I specifically do not agree with in the case of Noven Belleza is how the concept of power dynamics seem to come at play. It seems to me as the familiar repulsion of the powerful and the powerless. I do not understand how sexual assault can be bailable regardless of the presence of a proven investigation. It’s something I would never accept.

Cases such as this is somewhat already a faded mark on our concrete wall we like to call “history.” We’ve seen this in resemblance from the famous case of Pepsi Paloma who had been “allegedly” raped by our favourite comedians, one of which (a friendly reminder) sits in our Senate office today. It was a case of paedophilia, coercion, and conspiracy. Nothing that came out of the headlines of publications during that time really connected the dots, especially after the conclusive news that Paloma had been found dead with a rope on her neck in what the police had concluded as suicide “due to monetary problems.”

Paloma, at that time, was in the peak of her career. Justice, therefore, remains perpetually unserved.

Rape in the Philippines does not cause sharp intakes of breath and fear. Rape in the Philippines is a source of joke. A laughing matter, because nastiness is the trademark of our sense of humour. We often find our victims as the source of blame, too. It is the very reflection of what isn’t supposed to be. We are blindsided by our unconscious misogyny, but it causes me so much joy that somehow, in the wake of political consciousness in the 21st century, we are enlightened by the feminist movement.

Gender has a lot to do about the issue of rape culture. Misogyny, or the contempt, dislike, and hate towards women, is the mirror in which our prejudices inclines. This can simply be inferred to when President Duterte defended himself and declined to apologize for his rape jokes about the Australian missionary who had been raped and murder. In his statement, he said: “They raped all of the women… I saw her face and I thought: ‘Son of a bitch. What a pity.’… I was mad she was raped but she was so beautiful. I thought, the mayor should have been first.”

Later on, in his defence, he said: “This is how men talk.”

It is very similar to the common argument that often shuts our mouths up back in the old times. “Men will always be men” usually does the trick. Men, indeed, are great. This is the very argument that causes inhumane injustices come to life; it gives the excuse to the accusation that should have been rightfully valid, but was chosen to be pardoned and ignored, because men will always be men.

MEN. WILL. ALWAYS. BE. MEN.

It sounded like a universal truth; the greatest mathematical equation that could explain the arrangement of the universe. It sounds so convincing to our ears because it makes sense. Gender has become such a powerful social construct that we sometimes take it for granted. We have allowed it to become the reason behind our actions, whether it may be good or bad, falling prey in the subjective realm of gender and its stereotypes. We justify ourselves by our gender when gender should never be the justification we need.

The key to diminish rape culture and any other gender-influenced issues is to never let gender be a factor. This is not to say gender is not important, no. In the case of the general cases of rape, when we victim-shame the sufferer of rape cases, we unconsciously do so because of our programmed thinking that men predominates women. In an ideal life, we should not allow it.

Rape happens because of our unsteady and often misguided morals and values. The very nature of rape and other sexually assaulting activities is the complete result of the destruction of our foundations not as men or women, but as a human beings. Family plays an important role in this scene.

Although poverty is also a major catalyst, we can sometimes see that this is not always the case. Advantageous predators does not only pose threats to minorities of the marginalized sectors of the society. Sometimes they prey over people of their same social status. Celebrities who chooses to publicize their rape cases can be a solid proof of this if we take them seriously.

The marginalized will always be the most susceptible. Poverty will always be the major cause of different social and economic issues, not just rape. Children, most especially, is not exempted from rape culture. According to an online article presented by CNN Philippines in 2016, 7 out of 10 rape victims are children. The Center for Women’s Resources (CWR) expresses alarm over the rising cases of rape in the Philippines because the increase on the violation against the Anti-Violence against Women and their Children act has dramatically reached 200% from 2010 to 2014.

The article also posed alarming statistics. According the Philippine Statistics Authority, from the several thousands of rape cases, only 7,416 were in jail as of December 2012. The executive director of CWR, Jojo Guan, expresses this in his opinion that rape culture is the result of the cultivation of the “powerful dominates the powerless” dynamics, as I have agreed and argued beforehand.

Solutions to solve this issue has already been formulated and proposed. It even reached so far as our justice system, and rightfully so. But why is it still such a commonplace situation? Where does issues such as rape culture end?

The best solution, of course, lies in educating ourselves. But sometimes that has also proven us faulty if you consider rape cases from predators with high distinction in the academe. Intelligence does not altogether save us, but it is also our best shot.

Reading plays a huge role in this game. The mitigation of rape and the helpful process of minimizing its swelling culture lies in our abilities to think beyond ourselves. Educating and being politically aware of the rape scene helps us identify not only the things we can do, but the occurrences in which we can help. This also helps us identify what is wrong with the system that needs fixing. It is our channel in which we can learn to empathize and acknowledge the importance of why learning about the rape culture helps us diminish it.

I don’t think it will end. So far into my life, I honestly do not see that future ahead of us where rape is finally given the slap it deserves. It is as easy as it can be for us to quickly disregard this issue, and that will also reflect how easy it will be for us to slowly die from it.

In the light of rape culture, I pity the men who successfully managed to earn their reputations. Unstained and pristine. Men who, in the wake of the world where the distrust in their gender has become apparent, struggles to build relationships. I do not wish for the tables to turn when misogyny becomes misandry, when the hate has shifted to men. I still stick to my feminist ideals adhesively. I still believe in gender equality.

Rape culture will always be rape culture the same way rape will always be rape. It’s not enough that we acknowledge it. But rather, we must do something to altogether stop it. Rape is just one of those heinous and criminal crimes that we face as people of a society. It moves when we do, it breathes oxygen when we let it to.

For the case of Noven Belleza, whatever the decision may be, I hope it gets the justice it deserves. But for a country where the judiciary system is tainted either by incompetence and lack of utmost sincerity, justice will forever be a castle in the clouds. Never have we reached that place completely. Some of the lucky few do, and it has given us so many reason to never trust it at all.

It’s such a sad place to be in, the Philippines. The president gets to lead a country where the gender spectrum has always been heavier on one side of the scale. When a president who addresses rape as a joke, apologizes for it with reservations, and uses his masculinity as an excuse for the inexcusable causes of an attack no one deserves to experience, the brood of men rejoices. It empowers and gives them more reasons to reject their opposition, and no one likes to be challenged.

Truly, maybe the rape culture in the Philippines will never subside in the dawn of a careless butch for a president, but the power of influence does not start and end in the president alone. Truly, the president “should have been first,” but in this scene, we must not allow it so. Do your brothers and sisters a favour and do something about this issue, and never let your silence be heard.

Sources:

Perez, A. (July 20, 2017). 7 out of 10 rape victims are children — CWR. Retrieved from http://cnnphilippines.com/news/2016/03/06/rape-victims-children-cwr.html.

Campbell, C. (July 20, 2017). Philippine presidential candidate defends remarks on rape: “This is how men talk.” Retrieved from http://time.com/4297234/rodrigo-duterte- davao-city-philippines-rape-president-election-jacqueline-hamill/.

Philippine Commission on Women. (July 20, 2017). Rape. Retrieved from http://www.pcw.gov.ph/focus-areas/violence-against-women/rape.

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Jecko Sanjorjo

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I love to read and aspire to write great content. / 17

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