SO WHY NOT BOYCOTT THE INQUIRER?
Monday, August 21st, 2006This he-who-must-not-be-named-otherwise-his-bigoted-head-will-further-bloat just ruined everyone’s week. Fine, his name is Isagani Cruz and he ruined my week.
Reading his article bashing gays is one of those experiences when you were just told a truly outrageous lie and the swaggering liar still expected you to swallow it without complaint. And for a ghastly moment there, you were actually rendered speechless. Then you think to yourself, what kind of "macho" animal am I dealing with?!
I do not think one has to be a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) to take offense in outright bigotry. Unless, I guess, you graduated from Legarda Elementary School in the 1930s. Or sired five macho sons. Or were one of those who joshed and amiably teased someone for being effeminate. (Tsk, tsk, Tatine, comport yourself with grace and decorum.)
I’m sure that many thoughts crossed everyone’s minds when they read the article. I’m also certain that many would take up the call to denounce him to the Inquirer’s editorial board as several groups in the LGBT community have proposed. But I’d like to take a different track and ask, why in the first place did the Inquirer editorial board allow for such an article to see the light of day? How does the Inquirer editorial board define press freedom and balance it with media responsibility? What provision in their Code of Ethics allows for the promotion of a blatant call to discrimination? Simply put, where and how does the Inquirer draw the line?
As an advocate of the right to information, I also think that the Inquirer should be transparent about and made accountable for the process by which it allowed Cruz to criminally trample on LGBTs’ basic rights to personhood and freedom of expression.
One need not look far to see that discrimination against the LGBTs abound everywhere, be it in commercial establishments or even educational institutions. In fact, one unfailingly reads about discrimination of the petty, cruel and deliberate kind. His article glaringly belongs in that category and shame on the Inquirer for allowing its promotion!
There is an alarming increase in hate crimes committed against the LGBTs by the same people who espouse the article’s warped ideas. That it was penned by a retired Supreme Court Justice whose column location is given prominent space by the Inquirer has just legitimized and given further incentive to their barbarity.
Undoubtedly, Cruz is not alone in his bigotry and this disturbs me. This is one of those chilling instances when the pen is not just mightier than the sword. Cruz’s pen actually draws blood.
What kind of "macho" animal are we dealing with? The same one who petitioned the Supreme Court, his former abode, to declare the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act unconstitutional. Of course this is another story but significant to note in terms of precedent. Cruz lost that petition. Let’s wait and see what the Inquirer will do to his column.
If the Inquirer chooses inaction, well then everyone knows what paper is worth reading over it anytime.
‘Don we now our gay apparel’
By Isagani Cruz
Inquirer
Last updated 02:14am (Mla time) 08/12/2006
Published on Page A10 of the August 12, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily
Inquirer
HOMOSEXUALS before were mocked and derided, but now they are regarded with new-found respect and, in many cases, even treated as celebrities. Only recently, the more impressionable among our people wildly welcomed a group of entertainers whose main proud advertisement was that they were "queer." It seems that the present society has developed a new sense of values that have rejected our religious people’s traditional ideas of propriety and morality on the pretext of being "modern" and "broad-minded."
The observations I will here make against homosexuals in general do not include the members of their group who have conducted themselves decorously, with proper regard not only for their own persons but also for the gay population in general. A number of our local couturiers, to take but one example, are less than manly but they have behaved in a reserved and discreet manner unlike the vulgar members of the gay community who have degraded and scandalized it. I offer abject apologies to those blameless people I may unintentionally include in my not inclusive criticisms. They have my admiration and respect.
The change in the popular attitude toward homosexuals is not particular to the Philippines. It has become an international trend even in the so-called sophisticated regions with more liberal concepts than in our comparatively conservative society. Gay marriages have been legally recognized in a number of European countries and in some parts of the United States. Queer people — that’s the sarcastic term for them — have come out of the closet where before they carefully concealed their condition. The permissive belief now is that homosexuals belong to a separate third sex with equal rights as male and female persons instead of just an illicit in-between gender that is neither here nor there.
When I was studying in the Legarda Elementary School in Manila during the last 1930s, the big student population had only one, just one, homosexual. His name was Jose but we all called him Josefa. He was a quiet and friendly boy whom everybody liked to josh but not offensively. In the whole district of Sampaloc where I lived, there was only one homosexual who roamed the streets peddling "kalamay" and "puto" and other treats for snacks. He provided diversion to his genial customers and did not mind their familiar amiable teasing. I think he actually enjoyed being a "binabae" [effeminate].
The change came, I think, when an association of homos dirtied the beautiful tradition of the Santa Cruz de Mayo by parading their kind as the "sagalas" instead of the comely young maidens who should have been chosen to grace the procession. Instead of being outraged by the blasphemy, the watchers were amused and, I suppose, indirectly encouraged the fairies to project themselves. It must have been then that they realized that they were what they were, whether they liked it or not, and that the time for hiding their condition was over.
Now homosexuals are everywhere, coming at first in timorous and eventually alarming and audacious number. Beauty salons now are served mostly by gay attendants including effeminate bearded hairdressers to whom male barbers have lost many of their macho customers. Local shows have their share of "siyoke" [gay men], including actors like the one rejected by a beautiful wife in favor of a more masculine if less handsome partner. And, of course, there are lady-like directors who are probably the reason why every movie and TV drama must have the off-color "bading" [gay] or two to cheapen the proceedings.
And the schools are now fertile ground for the gay invasion. Walking along the University belt one day, I passed by a group of boys chattering among themselves, with one of them exclaiming seriously, "Aalis na ako.Magpapasuso pa ako!" ["I'm leaving. I still have to breastfeed!"] That pansy would have been mauled in the school where my five sons (all machos) studied during the ’70s when all the students were certifiably masculine. Now many of its pupils are gay, and I don’t mean happy. I suppose they have been influenced by such shows as "Brokeback Mountain," our own "Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros" (both of which won awards), "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," and that talk program of Ellen Degeneres, an admitted lesbian.
Is our population getting to be predominantly pansy? Must we allow homosexuality to march unobstructed until we are converted into a nation of sexless persons without the virility of males and the grace of females but only an insipid mix of these diluted virtues? Let us be warned against the gay population, which is per se a compromise between the strong and the weak and therefore only somewhat and not the absolute of either of the two qualities. Be alert lest the Philippine flag be made of delicate lace and adorned with embroidered frills.
