by Diego Morra
International Women’s Day came and went but apparently Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio was too busy to take time out to felicitate women workers, peasants, employees and lawmakers, like Gabriela Rep. Sarah Elago, as well as celebrities like the sisters Annie and Justine Curtis-Smith, all of whom celebrated March 8 and reaffirmed their commitment to promote, defend and safeguard women’s rights and denounce their objectification, commodification and reduction as unpaid domestic labor, to a far worse degree, as minors targeted for online sex trafficking.
What Sara did was issue a praise release in time for Mar. 8, declaring “panahon na upang magtatag tayo ng mga sistemang tunay na susuporta sa ating lakas.” She added: “We need real protection for the informal sector, climate-resilient support for our farmers, and genuine access to financing for women entrepreneurs.” Further, “ang pagsuporta sa kababaihan ay hindi lamang pagpapakita ng kabutihang-loob. It is a strategy for inclusive growth.” Nothing about defending the aggrieved sisters Anne and Justine, nothing about criticizing the usual “saling-pusa” lawyer who lusted after Gabriela Rep. Sarah Elago, and certainly nothing about really protecting minors who have been abused online and physically, in the case of pedophiles welcomed into the country as tourists.
Sara’s silence is deafening and it roars, telling half of the country’s population that the country’s woman vice president cannot criticize a congressman who merely apes that misogynism of his father and a lawyer, a recalcitrant media hog at that, joining embarrassing carnival by confessing that women who wear appealing fragrance and who pose in bikinis are appropriate targets of men who hunger for a good lay. Such disgusting expression of carnal desire may actually express the psychological and physical incapacity to do it. What cannot be actualized must be vocalized. Noise is loudest in an empty can, whether at the House of Representatives or in the Senate. These are issues that Sara can tackle after manhandling a court sheriff implementing a court order. As one lawyer said: Kapag may katwiran, ipaglaban. Yet, Sara cannot raise a whimper against the backers of her father. That is shirking from her moral responsibility as the champion of womanity.
Does “shemenit” when Sara called for “systems” to support genuine women’s strength? How about a word about a “male chauvinist pig” that her own aunt criticized—Rodrigo Duterte—himself, who not only gets his ding-a-ling aroused but also wished to have the first dibs on an Australian missionary killed in a Davao City since he was the city mayor, and necrophilia is not a joke. Nothing about “biology” running amuck to justify a harem and 13 women whose wombs must always be open to satisfy the elder Duterte’s “biology.” Nothing about the uncouth addiction to female “entertainers” by her own brother. The unequal status of women is practiced right there in the realm of the Dutertes and Sara has no idea that the system she wants changed is institutionalized in the family home. No comment at all about the structural inequality that treats female labor as inferior and the wage must be sub-par.
It was only after Sara declared that she was running for the presidency in 2028 that people started seeing her talking about “governance,” justifying her bid for the highest elective office in the land by declaring that she would do for the entire country what she had done in Davao City when she was mayor. Every voter should be reminded that recurrent flooding in Davao City did not end when she became mayor. What happened was that she initiated the first city-wide surveillance system through a US tech company, an indication of her firm but cloned law-and-order type of management. Under her administration, she had complete control of confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) that totaled P2.597 billion, beating the CIF of larger cities with higher incomes. She had at her disposal P144-million in 2016, P293-million the following year and P420-million in 2018. From 2019 to 2022, Sara gifted herself with an annual CIF of P460-million. With CIF and other types of allocations, Davao City maintained an 11,000-member work force comprised of Duterte loyalists.
Had Sara bothered to read, she would have known that March 8 did not become International Women’s Day because of the say-so of some potentate, religious leader or politician. It was born out of the proletarian movement, with Russian women leading strikes in February 1917 to demand bread and land and British workers calling women to be granted the right to vote as early as 1903. The movement became widely known for the use purple, green and white as campaign colors. In 1908, more than 15,000 American workers marched to demand higher pay, better working conditions, the right to organize and exercise political and voting rights. The feminist and communist leader Clara Zetkin spurred the creation of a special day for women during the conference of women workers in 1910.
Thus, International Women’s Day is not a day for dishing out pablum and sophomoric praise releases that do not tackle the issues that concern women here and around the world. With the mindless Suntay declaration seconded by the Hitler-loving pro-Duterte lawyer, sexism has been thrust into the limelight, with a congressman’s fertile imagination giving “Bedtime Stories” of the 1960s some currency. The lawmaker apparently hasn’t read reports by Scientific American that showed men’s sexual peak straddles the 30s and 40 while that of women ranges from 27 to 45. Whether they like it or not libido actually decreases starting the late 20s. It might be the case that the lawmaker’s spirit was willing but the flesh is weak. Thus, vocalization takes precedence over consummation. Instead of perorating about their hidden desires, lawmakers should tackle the many ways of skinning the cat, so to speak, and start giving Filipino women a better deal.
Sara is probably not bothered by the reports that up to 2.5 million Filipino minors have become victims of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children (OSAEC), raising fears among United Nations (UN) officials and Oxfam leaders that poverty has become the reason why such criminal acts continue with impunity. Here, the problem is that such criminal acts have been normalized, tolerated and even justified, all because of filthy lucre. Republic Act No. 11930, also known as the Anti-Online Sexual Abuse or Exploitation of Children (OSAEC) and Anti-Child Sexual Abuse or Exploitation Materials (CSAEM) Act, was crafted precisely to address OSAEC but the issue is that many families regard it as an income source even as the children are traumatized and perhaps scarred for life. Tolerating the practice is itself a red flag. However, how can you protect the kids when the elders regard them as capital. Worse, some lawmakers cannot tweak the law to make it stricter. Protecting children is a must even among legislators whose libido has gone down the sinkhole.#
