“Don’t take the President seriously when he makes jokes about rape. A joke can be taken differently in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao,” so said Harry Roque.
This is the presidential spokesman talking about his boss in a feeble attempt to defend President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest controversial comment about women and rape. Critics have suggested President Duterte should take a rest from running the country. It seems, however, it is Harry Roque who needs to take a break from his job. He’s running out of punch lines to defend his chief’s erratic behavior.
Harry Roque should have stopped at “don’t take the President seriously.” Period.
Going into the second half of his presidency, Du-Dirty should know that Filipinos have stopped taking him seriously when he unleashed profanities against Pope Francis and US President Barack Obama, told government soldiers to shoot captured communist women between the legs, and unleashed vitriolic words against the US, the United Nations and the European Union. This is a man who hates everybody and everything.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not personal. I don’t have any fixation to loathe Harry Roque. His job is difficult enough—defending Duterte who spews mouthful of profanities and sick jokes about women and now rape.
And what is this latest joke?
“We have many beautiful women in Davao that is why we have a lot of rape incidents,” said Mr. Duterte. It was said in Visayan. But no matter what dialect Digong said it, it’s still a sick joke done in very bad taste. Militant group Gabriela and the Philippine Commission on Women are furious Duterte can joke about such a sensitive subject.
We hope Davao does not use the Duterte joke as a tourism promotion slogan. “Come to Davao where we have many beautiful women to rape.” But of course, tourists who might be enticed to terrorize the women of Davao will have to deal with Mayor Inday Sara Duterte. She has a reputation for having mean knuckles, gained when she punched a sheriff on the face. The sheriff was serving an eviction notice to Davao’s homeless.
The beauty of women and tourism spots are used by other countries as come-ons. Hungary ran a tourism ad in the New York Times with a beautiful blonde as illustration. The copy (text) says: “Beauty, we have more like her per square miles more than any other country.” Hungarian women are really beautiful. Take it from someone who had been assigned as Philippine ambassador based in Budapest for six years. Yet Hungary has never won a world beauty pageant title, while the Philippines has three Miss Universe titlists in Pia Wurztbach, Gloria Diaz and Margie Moran.
My appreciation of Hungarian women’s beauty was responsibly kept at a distance. There are other things more beautiful in Hungary such as the River Danube that flows along Austria, Hungary and Romania. Then of course there is the music—that can “soothe the savage beast”—composed by such masters as Franz Liszt, Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly. I had my fill of the music of these world famous composers during the many concerts the diplomatic community was invited to by the host government.
“Come to our island before the tourists discover it.” Now, that catchy and imaginative tourism promo ad comes from a little-known country. The text was original and NOT plagiarized from another country’s.
But back to Digong’s latest rape remark, which has drawn a backlash from women’s groups and netizens. The joke is adding insult to injury considering that Davao recorded 42 cases of rape from April to June 2018 alone. This is according to the Philippine National Police. Quezon City came in a close second for the same period, according to the same PNP report.
Manila is third with 42 rape cases, followed by Cagayan de Oro with 34, and Zamboanga City, 21.
The overall number of rapes committed in the country is alarming, From 4,712 in 2012, the figure jumped to 10,000 in 2015! This, despite the government’s anti-crime campaign and focus on illegal drug trafficking.
Since there are allegations of rampant extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, perhaps it’s time for Congress to legislate the return of the death penalty to put the fear of God on rapists and drug traffickers.
