The gayness of you

“BAYOT.” It is, to me, one of the most versatile words in Bisaya. It is used as a noun, an adjective, adverb, verb, and expletive by people who have no idea how courageous it is to be openly gay in a patriarchal society such as ours.

But nobody is born a bigot. You pick it up as you grow. People older than you tend to hand down their own prejudices to younger people. I remember being told not to be a “bayot” whenever I was on the verge of tears. Somebody at some time has been told by someone “ayaw pagbinayot” when they were about to walk away from a fistfight.

I’m not trying to pull a “holier than thou” here. That, I am not. I admit. I have had my share of gay bashing before, innocuous as it seemed. Like most middle-aged Ateneans in the city, I spent 12 years of my life in an exclusive boys school. My “gaydar” hasn’t failed me before. I can spot one from out of a crowd. I’ve heard gay classmates cry in the toilet after a particularly difficult day of constant teasing from other boys. I don’t know about you but high school can be really brutal.

As easy as it was to be “downloaded” to my psyche that gay bashing is just friendly banter, I soon realized that friendly banter is very different from gay bashing. I realized that like heterosexuals, our sexual orientations do not define people’s personality and capabilities.

For instance, I realized it wasn’t friendly banter anymore when I once bashed a classmate verbally for being gay when in reality I was just frustrated because he had a higher score in a pop quiz. His being gay wasn’t the reason why I was second. He was just more prepared than I was.

Once, I realized that in introspection, my petty prejudice against gays slowly began to dissipate. There are smart and dumb homosexuals just as there are smart and dumb heterosexuals. As early as high school, I’ve never referred to myself as “straight” because that would mean that gay people are “crooked.”

Going to the point I was making, people are people no matter what their sexual orientations are. I realized these when I was in high school. So, it came as a shock to me when last week, a city councilor cum radio anchor dismissed an information officer’s explanation on air because he “sounded gay.”

This guy is well in his 60s. You would think, this guy has better things to discuss on air than to bash another person’s gayness on air. But then again, people will be people no matter what.

That incident piqued my curiosity on why some people hang on to prejudices unwittingly handed down to them when they were young. It had awoken the Curious George in me.

According to Jeanna Bryner, a managing editor at Live Science, studies have found that homophobes are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views because they themselves have same-sex desires, albeit undercover ones, meaning latent homosexuality. Hmmm, that’s a curious assumption.

Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, posited that homosexual urges, when repressed out of shame or fear, can be expressed as homophobia.

“Freud famously called this process a ‘reaction formation’ — the angry battle against the outward symbol of feelings that are inwardly being stifled,” Ryan’s study reads in part.

The articles I’ve read on the subject may not categorically call homophobes as latent homosexuals but at least some who feel strongly against homosexuals are likely to be persons struggling against parts of themselves. They, being victims of repression and fear of rejection themselves.

So maybe, just maybe, some people have to look into themselves once in while just to see if what we think is friendly banter against gays are not in fact repressed feelings of wanting to be like them — happy and gay.

Unabashed bigotry

“Bigotry is boring when we add modifiers.” – Gregory House, MD [Hugh Laurie].

THIS is what I love about the current administration — its consistency on being inconsistent especially when it comes to the Bangsamoro people.

That is why I wasn’t particularly surprised when the “Muslim ID” brouhaha hit the fan, so to speak. However, I cannot blame Muslims about how they reacted. This administration’s Muslim ID is dissonant to hizzoner’s pronouncements in the past.

Didn’t this administration vow to correct the historical injustices done to the Moros? Didn’t this President lambast a US President because of a massacre some hundred years ago? Digression: With the Duterte administration, the President and administration are interchangeable because he micromanages.

Everything this administration does can and should be attributed all the way to the top of the bureaucracy because he is the boss. He made it clear in all of his long-winded speeches, albeit with a repetitive topic (read: obosen).

This administration is also systematic, too. Before the Muslim ID brouhaha, it clipped the executive powers of some seven governors and 132 mayors here in Mindanao. The reason, this administration said, is because they have been “engaging in acts inimical to national security or which negate the effectiveness of the peace and order campaign of the government; and providing material support to criminal elements.”

Even the most rabid supporters of this administration were included. Well, there being Muslims helped a lot in their inclusion in the list.

The multi-awarded mayor of Upi, Ramon Piang Sr. made it to the list. Cotabato Mayor Frances Cynthia Sayadi made it to the list, too. Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu and the 28 mayors under him have also been listed by the National Police Commission.

Haven’t these people showed enough support to the administration’s war on drugs? I’ve been reading these same names in the reports of our correspondents in their areas. I can distinctly remember Sayadi locking down Cotabato City when the Marawi crisis began and Mangudadatu’s all-out support to Masa Masid.

I can point out the inconsistencies and how bigoted this Muslim ID brouhaha is but I cannot narrate it funnier than what Armm Executive Secretary Laisa Masuhud Alamia posted on her Facebook wall over the weekend.

“And now some people in Luzon think I need a Muslim ID. I suppose they’re requiring this because we, Muslim Filipinos, don’t look Muslim enough as we are. I don’t look Muslim enough in person nor in these IDs, even when I’m wearing the hijab. So just to be sure, to be really 100% sure, they need me to present a Muslim ID to ensure that I’m really, truly a Muslim,” Alamia’s post reads in part.

I agree with her that the Muslim ID is “hilarious, if not tragically sad.”

Alamia started her post by saying “I need a bigger wallet.”

So here’s my equally “hilarious” suggestion to this administration. Since we have IDs for pretty much every single government service agency, I suggest these IDs be collated into one bar code for each citizen and then tattoo that bar code to the nape or forehead.

Better yet, RF tag the entire citizenry. That would really put the Philippines in the limelight. Sieg Heil!

Read, understand, react

“You can fool some people sometimes. But you can’t fool all the people, all the time.” -Bob Marley, Get up Stand up

I AM not a member of the national directorate of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines anymore. However, as a member of the union in the province, I am moved to reply to the responses of the Duterte siblings to the union’s statement.

In the statement, the union merely admonished Davao Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio and Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte on their personal attacks and veiled threats against a member of media, who in turn, only reminded colleagues of how to handle news of the death of the lone casualty of the attacks of Maoist rebels against facilities of Lapanday Foods Corp last week.

It would do well for the siblings to be reminded they’re not just spoiled brats of a kingpin mayor anymore. They are no ordinary persons for they are not only persons of power in their fiefdom, nay city, they are also presidential children.

“As a public official, she is subject to commentaries and criticisms especially from the press and should not respond with personal attacks and threats,” reads part of NUJP’s statement.

Hours after the release of the statement, Duterte-Carpio took to her social media again and responded: “National Union of Journalists in the Philippines. I too have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of speech and expression. The NUJP, my husband (Manases ‘Mans’ Carpio, Lapanday legal counsel), or even the President (Rodrigo Duterte) cannot shut me down. I will speak when I want to. Hahaha. Mamatay na kayo sa inis, sasagot pa rin ako.”

That response puzzled me since nowhere in the union’s statement did it state nor try to “shut down” the Davao mayor. I don’t know where the mayor got confused in the message considering most parts of the statement consisted of a direct quotation of the sibling’s tirade against a broadcaster.

As for her hot-headed macho brother, the vice mayor also took to his social media account and unfurled a string of off-tangent barely comprehensive tirade that sounded like a kid stripped of his favorite toy in the park by a bully.

“And again, let me reiterate ? Imo pakauwawan akoang pamilya, imong hilabtan nga wa man intawoy sala ninyo o sa publiko, bukbukon taka? Media man ka o bisan unsa ka pa. And dili tungod media ka, hawod na ka ug di na ka pwede hilabtan. Ayaw kabalaka kay di ko pareha anang uban nga momasaker,” the vice mayor response to the union’s statement.

Again, I am appalled at the response. I assume these public officials, elected servants at that, would know how to react to dissent or a public rebuke. Again, nowhere in the statement of the union did it try to shame the presidential family.

It called on their public statements which were uncalled for.

At first, I was tempted to chalk their off-tangent responses to poor comprehension skills. But, I realized there is something more sinister at play here.

It is something deliberate, something conscious, and something you develop through one’s years growing up–attitude.

It’s the attitude of entitlement which betrayed the siblings’ petulance and insolence veiled under the supposedly “masa” language. What is being displayed here is the attitude of the nouveau royalty. The impertinence of a fief lord against a serf.

It’s the attitude that bore such unfortunately popular lines: Do not bite the hand that feeds you and how dare you question the boss.

It’s a manipulative attitude. Goading their serfs to attack their fellow serfs by using the language of the serfs. It’s introspective victimization.

Filipinos are known to be melodramatic. The reason why teleseryes, where a muchacha is being ganged upon by the alta sociedad, thrive. This has worked so many times in our history. Erap used it but we all know how his administration ended, right?

So here’s an unsolicited advice: You can manipulate the people with your brand of rhetoric but you certainly cannot do that to all, all the time. Review history, ma’am and sir, and you’ll see it never ends well with despotic tyrants.

Back to the grind

EVERYTHING is back to normal. The only one true god and savior is back in the hearts of the fanatics. The infallible and incorrigible is back to thriving in the country as he is encouraged and nourished by the very society which he abhors.

Every disciple of the regime is back to calling for blood in the name of their savior’s war on illegal drugs. Each fanatic is back to mocking priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. Human rights advocates are not safe again and, as declared by their one true god, it’s an open season against the press.

Yes, folks, Lent is over. The mass hypocrisy and delusion is over.

Last week, I conducted a social experiment on my Facebook wall. I posted outrageous, ridiculous, and for the believers, sacrilegious ideas on my wall. The posts were meant to draw out reactions from my friends and relatives.

As was expected, some friends parried my posts by posting on their own walls about respecting their beliefs and religion. I say it was an expected response because most religious people feel the need to defend their belief system especially when it is questioned during the most serious and religious week of the church calendar-year.

They say they respect the belief of others or the lack thereof. But the point is, I am not obliged in any way to respect something which I think is ridiculous.

A few others, those who really know me, just laughed off my posts and even offered their own brand of ridiculousness on the thread.

I will not, however, belabor on those kinds of reactions. My Lenten social media experiment was targeted at the insanely religious yet supports the wanton extrajudicial killings, the bashing of human rights advocates and civil libertarians.

At least five distant relatives and two acquaintances “unfriended” and “blocked” me from their Facebook accounts. Based on that kind of response, I believe my social experiment was spot on.

I find it funny and ridiculous that these people find my Lenten posts as “sacrilegious, blatant, irreverent, and disrespectful” (I used the quotation marks because these were the exact words sent to me via private messaging on Facebook) yet would willingly and consciously applaud and approve their one true god and savior every time he lambasts the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, makes the most misogynistic pronouncements, and promotes purging of “lesser” human beings under the pretext of his war on drugs.

Yesterday, this regime’s disciples were back to their old selves– “sacrilegious, blatant, irreverent, and disrespectful.”

However, we, sane and rational people, have respite from all of these tirades. We’ll always have Lent next year when these disciples will again wear their religious masks.

For now, it is back to new normal–back to the grind, as it were. Pfft.

Mob anger

“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring (Gandalf’s Advice)

LAST week, the city was overwhelmed with anger when the Balinado house on JR Borja St. near Burgos St. was burglarized. Thirty-year-old graduating education student Cherrymae Dayo was allegedly raped, and then stabbed. Dayo managed to run outside the house to call for help but later died in the hospital. The main suspect, Warren Amarga, 24, admitted to stabbing Dayo to the chest but denied having raped her.

Within minutes after the police announced that they have arrested five suspects hours after the crime was committed, a mob started to form outside the police station in Divisoria. A radio reporter asked one of the kibitzers outside what he hoped to accomplish by joining the mob outside the police station. The kibitzer answered he wanted to punch or at least scratch the face of one of the suspects.

Meanwhile, local social media groups overflowed with angry posts. Most posts wanted death to the suspects. They want the recently approved Death Penalty Bill (House Bill 4727) to be applied on the five suspects.

First, death penalty cannot be applied on the suspects yet since it is still a bill (read: proposed law)–senators have yet to vote on it. Second, the members of the Lower House, in all their “wisdom,” only arrived at a consensus after the House Speaker removed the heinous crimes of rape and plunder in the list of offenses punishable by death. HB 4727, should it pass the bi-cameral session, will only cover drug-related offenses.

That’s the problem with most netizens these days. They read less than their comments. Perhaps, these “righteous” people should direct their anger at our congressmen who were among the majority in the Lower House to delist rape in their Death Penalty Bill.

Some asked why the human rights advocates, specifically the Commission on Human Rights, were silent. That rhetorical question is really dumb. This argument, if you call it that, has been going around social media since the start of President Digong Dada’s campaign last year. The CHR is not a law enforcement body.

It bothers me that in this supposed information age, many netizens choose ignorance.

Look, I understand anger. What I don’t understand is why there was no public outburst of anger in the Jamaca case or the Fernandez case? Is it because the suspects in these cases involved were police officers? Where was the people’s “righteous” anger then?

I agree that whoever raped and killed Dayo should be punished with the full force of the law. Such crime was incorrigible. However, if the mob insists that these five suspects should be killed and that their anger is “righteous,” I dare them to go to the police station now. Go and grab the gun of the officer-in-charge, and pull the trigger to kill the suspects even before their guilt could be established in court. Go put a hole in each of the suspect’s head.

Go ahead, make Cocpo’s day.

Post no bill, please

CONSIDERING how many times this regime has been finding ways to mess up our civil liberties, it should change its logo to a fist with the middle finger sticking out.

As if the be-wigged stooge of President Digong Dada at the justice department hasn’t wrangled the Republic’s judicial system enough to serve the regime’s vendetta, here comes another stooge who wants to impose the historically “effective” ghetto-like branding – all, of course, in the name of waging the war on drugs.

About a fortnight ago, Interior Secretary Ismael Sueño opined to label houses that are supposedly “drug free” with a decal telling people the house is such.

Sueño suggests this will be better than the violent Oplan Tokhang. He is so convinced there is nothing inherently wrong with this that he vilified Amnesty International-Philippines when the latter called him out on his plan to brand houses. Sueño even resorted to a childish play on words against the Nobel Prize laureate saying: “They should be branded as human wrong group, not human rights group.”

Who will determine if the household is indeed drug-free? Who will evaluate and confirm this as a fact? How will they categorize and what are the rules of implementation of this branding campaign?

This came to him, Sueño said, after meeting with the regional peace and order councils recently.

He said this regime is shifting to a non-violent and positive way to combat illegal drugs. Is he admitting that Oplan Tokhang was wrong? The plastering of “drug free” stickers on houses, he said, will not be a police operation but by the civilian peace and order councils from the regional down to the barangay level.

Hasn’t Sueño been listening to his boss? Didn’t Digong Dada push for the postponement of the barangay elections because “most” barangay officials are allegedly involved in the illegal drugs trade? Now, Sueño wants these people allegedly involved in illegal drug trafficking to decide which house in their barangay is drug-free? If he doesn’t see the problem of conflicts of interest in that arrangement, I personally don’t know what will.

How sure is Sueño that this new branding campaign will not be used by barangay chairpersons as a subtle campaign for their own pedestrian political careers? Let’s not forget we are going to elect a new set of barangay officials this coming October. I, for one, am not expecting for such decal. This is because I have been at odds with our barangay chairman in Consolacion – a Roa, I might add – since he practically abdicated his mandate to policing our village of drug users and hooligans. My regular (at 165 of them) readers will bear this out since I have been writing about his governance style or to be accurate his lack of it.

Plus, let me remind Mr. Sueño that we are in the Philippines – a third world impoverished country – where a house does not automatically mean one family. I live in a house being shared by two other families. Should our brilliant barangay chairman decide not to stick a decal on our house on my account – just to get back at me – won’t that be unfair for the other two families, who may or may not be involved in illegal drugs?

I am most certain that this will be used arbitrarily by barangay chairpersons who want to stay as chairpersons in their barangays after October.

“Plus, let me remind Mr. Sueño that we are in the Philippines…”

Which company will be printing the drug-free decals. Who stands to gain from this enterprise? In street vernacular: Pila man gyud, ser?

I mean, how different is this to Nazi Germany’s posting of a Star of David on the homes of Jews not too long ago. This may be a reverse of what Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim did before, spray-painting houses of suspected drug traffickers but its effect is still the same. It will discriminate the household members of a house with no drug-free sticker plastered on it.

So, no, Mr. Sueño, I will not participate in your version of a Star of David – respect my right to private property and post no bill, please.

Shock over Sandy Hook shooting tragedy

Peoples from across the world are still reeling from what may well be the worst tragedy in the history of public school shootings in the United States of America. Here, in behalf of the Filipino people, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III extended sympathy and solidarity.

In an emailed statement, Saturday evening, President Aquino enjoined the Filipinos to pray for healing and that the senseless carnage in the Sandy Hook Elementary School—where 28 were killed, 20 of whom were children—should never happen to any community.

“We stand beside you with bowed heads, yet in deep admiration over the manner in which the American people have reached out to comfort the afflicted and to search for answers that will give meaning and hope to this grim event,” the President's statement reads.

On morning of December 14, Adam Lanza, 20, allegedly killed his mother, Nancy, in her home. Riding his mother's car, Lanza then went to the school where his mother taught kindergarten and indiscriminately fired over a hundred rounds—18 of the 20 children were pronounced dead on the spot—US law enforcement sources said.

Authorities said they found three firearms in the car: a .223 caliber “Bushmaster” rifle, a Sig Sauer and Glock pistols. Lanza later killed himself, US authorities added.

The slaughter, US pundits posited, has surpassed the 1999 Columbine shooting incident that left 19 killed and 24 wounded and comes terrifyingly close to the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 where 32 lives were lost.