How can those plain words still be subject to interpretation?
Representative Jesus Manuel “Bong” Suntay, my congressman from the fourth district of Quezon City, was in the news this week – but not for any noble or remarkable cause. Quite the contrary, he found himself at the receiving end of criticism for comments he made about an actress during a congressional session on the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte.
These were his exact words on Tuesday:
“Lastly, you know, once when I was in Shangri-La, I saw Anne Curtis. She is really beautiful. You know, a desire inside me welled up, I felt the heat, and I just imagined what could happen, but of course, that is only my imagination. But I think I cannot be charged for what I was able to imagine.”
There was an immediate move to strike his comment from the records, and what followed was widespread condemnation. In reaction to the reaction, Suntay said Wednesday:
“Anne, that analogy was not meant [to be] malicious. It was an analogy based on the context of this (impeachment) proceeding. It may have been [in] bad taste for some, I apologize. Kung meron tayong sensitivities na tinamaan but it was not the intention (If we hurt some sensitivities, that was not the intention). The intention was to make a point that oftentimes, statements are taken out of context and conclusions are made. ‘Yun ang unang punto.”
He had a second point, he said – to emphasize that “desires and imagination cannot be made an impeachable offense.”
What a classic non-apology apology. He was apologizing not for what he said or did, but for the fact that others were offended by it. The implication was that it was they who had a problem because they made much of a statement that he claimed intended no malice.
On Thursday, Suntay appeared on journalist Karen Davila’s show Headstart where he prattled on about his “poor analogy” and that he realized now that his words could be “subject to interpretation.” The analogy he kept referring to was his attempt to push his point that the Vice President’s threat to kill the President, because it happened only in her mind, could not be held against her. After all, she never really got around to doing the deed. She just thought about it. And thoughts are harmless.
But his words are not harmless, because they very clearly reduced Curtis to an object of desire, such that he had physical reactions and that he was actively imagining many things. And to think that these were uttered in the halls of Congress!
I wonder, too, how he could claim that his words were subject to interpretation. They were as clear as day to any reasonable person.
Davila kept asking him whether he now understood where the backlash was coming from. Even then, she got no straight answers. He kept blaming his bad analogy and maintained that he was sorry if people got offended. In fact, he said, his daughter called him from overseas asking him whether he was okay.
So now he’s the one misunderstood, suffering from all the criticism. And then he went on to say that the country has many other problems. Why don’t we try fixing those instead of attacking him?
(I don’t even know what to say about the people defending him or dismissing the incident as something that only matters to the oversensitive or to the woke.)
Meanwhile, Shiela Guevarra-Suntay did not stand by her man, and for this she deserves credit. On Friday, she posted a statement on social media, saying she and her children did not agree with nor condone the analogy her husband had made. She apologized to Curtis and said no woman should ever be spoken about that way.
She asked the public that she and her children be left out of “this.”
Shiela’s statement has been the only redeeming thing that has come out of this mess, so far. We are used to long-suffering wives standing by their wayward husbands to the end, in an attempt to keep the peace or keep the family intact. From her words, Shiela sounds like a logical, empowered woman, taking no BS and asserting boundaries. Of course, we don’t know what happens behind closed doors, but if she can call him out in public this way, and they remain together (not separated), then it tells us a lot about the dynamic in this particular marriage.
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Should one blunder define us? Should his original statement about Curtis define the Honorable Suntay and negate whatever good he may have done over the decades (if in fact he has done any good)?
Of course not. Anybody could misspeak at one point. We all have our bad moments.
What is more telling, however, is how we seek to rectify the consequences of our words. We can look at the apology. We can look at whether he tried to address the issue squarely. We can see if he is sincere and whether he truly realizes that what he said was wrong, and that his entire mindset is foul and rotten. And then we look at whether the person genuinely tries to change and refrain from committing the same mistake.
If he doesn’t, then we know – he’s hopeless. Classic, yes, but hopeless, nonetheless.
