Sex in Politics: The Philippine Version

It is the age old story of a woman bringing a seemingly omnipotent man into ruin. Delilah cut off Samson’s long locks while he was sleeping ultimately causing his demise. Such has been told and retold for centuries but still is applicable to the present. Or is it? This is an old issue that I have yet to write about though.

Eliot Spitzer, Harvard law school graduate, came from a very influential family, married to a very smart and very blonde attorney such as himself ( a fellow Harvard law school alumnus!) who gave up her lucrative career to support him in his political ambitions, is your modern day Samson. He was on top of the world, years of hard work and showing of candor and integrity in the job would do that. He was the tough-talking governor of New York, more of a statesman than your politician, who did not yield to anything or anybody, all for the common good.

Then, in a split second, everything that he toiled for for years, all crumbled down on him. News leaked about his February 13th romp with a certain long-haired, very young and very pretty brunette who swiped a Metrocard (similar to our MRT Card used to take the famed New York Subway transportation) towards his suite in Washington, in exchange for a couple of thousand dollars of American taxpayers’ money. The intense media scrutiny and pillory that followed finally caused him to resign. Lt. Gov. David Paterson took his place.

You would think that in the very liberal and secular America, where homosexuals are allowed by law to marry and abortion (in some States) is legal, such an act of his would not receive as much furor as compared to when such happens here in the Philippines, supposed to be a predominant and highly devout Catholic country. In reality, the opposite occurs. In the US, Spitzer’s prostitution scandal as prime example, the people acted vehemently, ousting him indirectly in the process. He erred and paid dearly for it. This came from a largely Protestant nation, with various religious beliefs. Can we say the same for the Philippines?

I recently spoke with my mother over dinner. My mother devours those Entertainment magazines like they were air, and she was marveling on how Lani Mercado stuck with Ramon “Bong” Revilla, a Filipino politician, throughout his years of womanizing, his roster having even included Gretchen Barretto ( a starlet in her heydays, one of the most beautiful women to grace the Filipino movie screen, some top showbiz directors grudgingly admit). I had a hazy recollection of such news, and thinking about it, it dawned to me on how, compared to their US counterparts as in Spitzer’s case, Filipino politicians’ exploits of women albeit their married state such as Bong Revilla, never garner the same kind of attention and insult as it did Spitzer, for example. Here, they even become President! (Joseph Estrada’s philandering ways were an open secret, still he was elected into office- they were later found sourced by taxpayers’ money such as the mansion he bought for one of his mistresses, but it took years before he was being prosecuted for it. And when a conviction of guilty was brought upon him, he is immediately pardoned after, to top it off, he is now carrying around wanting to be re-elected once more. ) Talk about nerve!

And to think that Filipinos were conservative, dogmatic Catholics who put morality over everything else. Why do abominable actions such as his do not get the proper feeling of resentment from the Filipino people as in did in the US in Spitzer’s case?

I think about the possible explanations. Maybe it is because of the Filipinos’ generally forgiving nature. Or perhaps the Split-level Christianity theory would explain thus. We have adopted the foreign religion, and we mix it with our own Filipino beliefs, thus, Catholicism practiced here becomes Filipinized. That causes the rift between practice and belief- though we Catholics abhor liaisons of married individuals, for example, in reality, it is accepted, for males, that is. This brings about another conception that our culture may still be suffering with the archaic double standard- that men are, by nature, prone to being unfaithful. It is but a normal occurrence. Sorry girls, you cannot do anything about it but to accept it.

I vote for the last reason being the reason for the discrepancy. Filipinos have also held on this belief that boys will be boys. Men and women alike subscribe to idea that on one point of a relationship, the males will stray. It will be inevitable. That does not mean there is no love. There is. It is just that they cannot control their urges. At least you are sure that your man is a real man, right?

That type of reasoning, I believe, had been invented by this macho chauvinist who wants to have his cake and eat it, too. Such a belief must be completely done away with, women and the children become victims in the end.

In the Philippines, the age old story of a woman bringing a man to ruin does not apply. Delilah has no power in this picture. Whatever she does, Samson will prevail. It is because people always consider Delilah as a non-entity. Only in the Pilipins… with our culture so messed up, even supposedly universal Biblical stories are irrelevant. We have our own twisted rules, that run contrary to what is collectively moral and good. That should be a great cause for concern, don’t you think?