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Silence the president
President Rodrigo Duterte is already in his seventies. At his age, there is no hope that he will ever change his behavior towards women. His obvious aversion – even to the limit of hatred – of the Catholic Church is already anchored in his psyche, as he himself acknowledged deeply rooted in the fact that he would have been molested by a Jesuit priest in his youth.
There are just some things that we can not change anymore and that we just have to accept or, if not, just ignore.
The other thing that can not be changed anymore, is that he is president of the Republic of the Philippines. His rise to the position of highest official of our country is the manifestation of a tacit consent given by a significant plurality in our society to a fool to become president. It is not even a case of tolerance, but also a rebellion against well-maintained hypocrisy, against people who embody the decent morals of those who are well behaved and who have misdirected the country. Many people applaud when President Duterte begins his misogynistic tirades, when he talks about swapping saliva with beautiful women and kissing them on the lips. They do not care about these otherwise non-presidential acts, simply because they have it with choreographed decency.
Some people were horrified when he cursed God. They are now as horrified when he has once again trolled Catholics and their belief in saints. For a while, his numbers plummeted because of his anti-Catholic rhetoric, but recently, his confidence ratings have rebounded and rebounded. This is largely due to the fact that the Catholic Church is also an institution broken in the eyes of many people, with its own dark deeds, priests harassing altar boys and permeating female parishioners while the hierarchy of the Church was turning away. The untaxed wealth of the church has also become a sore spot for Filipinos, who must bear the burden of keeping the state ship afloat. So, even if a Catholic bishop can easily regard the president as a sick man who needs our prayers, it is also easy to reverse the situation and point out that the Catholic Church is not in as good a position. health and that she would also need our prayers.
But at the end of the day, one has to wonder if the noise of misogyny and blasphemy of the President is a necessary and relevant burden that has to be borne by a country that deserves much better in the face of enormous problems. There are those who argue that the president must calm his rhetoric and abstain from doing deeds and making offensive speeches for women and the Catholic Church.
But as I said, he is already old. It must be accepted that what others see as misogyny and blasphemy are already part of the president's habitus and worldview. And this is an attitude that a plurality of Filipinos have already learned to accept, even to tolerate. This is something that many of us would like to see changed, but could not, because it has become a habit usually reinforced by his followers.
The president's criticisms constantly emphasize that his statements are relevant because they become public policies or help to shape them. This view needs to be re-examined in the context of a president who seems to have a worldview that, while supported by its core, irritates and offends. It is time to question this perspective and begin to dissociate the president's offensive speech from what his government is actually doing. It must therefore be determined whether the president's misogynistic and blasphemous acts and statements have made their way into the current public policy that has reduced women's position in the eyes of the law or launched a pogrom against Catholics.
Because seriously, a closer look reveals no such thing. Although the political opposition wants to present Leila de Lima, Leni Robredo and Lourdes Sereno as targeted because of their sex, it is equally convincing to say that it was their actions that were the cause, and it just happened are women. The Duterte administration could not be accused of having an anti-woman political agenda when it was during its mandate that maternity leave benefits had been extended and the reproductive health law had been pushed to a higher level. implementation more significant, despite the opposition of the Catholic Church.
Despite his anti-Catholic rhetoric, no policy restricts the free exercise of his religion. The President has not issued any discriminatory political directive towards Catholics and the Catholic hierarchy. If so, the irreverence of the president only serves to make us understand that we are in reality, by politics, a secular state and that the Catholic Church, although nominally the religion of the majority, is not and should in no way be privileged in public policy and is not immune to criticism.
Thus, it is in the public interest that we can simply silence the president in our own way. This is already done by many people, who simply ignore the misogynistic and blasphemous speeches of the president, as a parent who would ignore a child who is pushing a crisis just to attract attention.
In the face of the many more important areas of our public life where we need to take a close look at the president's actions and statements, which are more steeped in political content, it may be necessary to silence the president's habits, even if they are shocking. to engage critically with the more substantive aspects of his speech. For example, it would be highly desirable for the media to agree to respond simply to the rants and tirades of the president who have nothing to do with substantive issues related to a policy with a well-deserved information breakdown.
Denying the antenna time to the misogyny and blasphemy of the President is not a censorship, but a self defense. It's like the non-tracking or rehearsal button that one can use to avoid being distracted by an offensive speech on social media. It is a responsible act that must be done to give us more time to focus on those that affect public policy, and to ignore things that we can not change anymore and we simply remove a lot of positive energy and constructive. we.
In fact, if only members of the political opposition could go beyond pettiness, ignoring the misogynistic and blasphemous speeches of the president would be a way for them to take control of the speech and force it into a political debate. more in depth.
After all, Rodrigo Duterte can be president. But we are not obliged to take all his statements seriously. In fact, this is what his spokespersons, even his daughter, the mayor Sara Duterte, advised us to do: ignore her speeches.
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