EVERYTHING that can probably be used to explain and excuse it has been said. It was a "playful act" and "accepted in Filipino culture" according to the Presidential Spokesperson. It was likened by the Presidential Legal Counsel to a grandfatherly kiss, and compared by a senator to the arrangement of married movie stars who have kissing scenes. President Rodrigo Duterte himself said it was "showbiz," plain "biology," and that he needs it. Everything—except that it was patently wrong.
"It" was the kiss that the president demanded from Bea Kim, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) during an event in South Korea.
I say "demanded" because President Duterte's body language and words indicated so. He beckoned to her, said "...may bayad itong halik. Handa ka bang makipaghalikan?" and proceeded to kiss the woman on the lips. Kim later said there was "no malice" to the kiss.
This only fueled more rationalization along the lines of "there was consent," "it was just a kiss, it's not as if she was publicly raped," and other politicians are doing it anyway. To support the last argument, a video of former Senator Ninoy Aquino being kissed by two women minutes before his assassination was circulated online.
The heated exchange between Asec Mocha Uson and Kris Aquino in relation to the video — which was also bizarrely taken advantage of by Marcos loyalists — and the subsequent apologies from Special Assistant to the President Bong Go and President Duterte are but among the latest to come out of what supposed to be "just" a kiss.
What was "just" a kiss was really but another public display of power that men who fit a particular demographic (senior, powerful, feeling entitled, and self-indulgent) frequently wield over women in our country.
That an anti-sexual harassment law criminalizes the solicitation of sexual favors was ignored. That the president had railed against poor treatment of OFWs, which includes sexual violence, was forgotten.
Migrant rights advocates feared the kiss would encourage more sexual aggression against OFWs. But a government undersecretary spun it as a manifestation of the president's love for OFWs.
Serial and systematic sexual harassment is so rampant in our society that women have learned to cope by rationalizing behaviors that demean them, such as unwanted and aggressive attention of male family members, and coercion from supposed friends and in work settings.
In the same event the president extolled what he called the "Iglesia ni Rodrigo" whose core belief is to "make yourself happy, you only live once."
President Duterte's dare that he would resign if "enough women" protested underscored his sense of entitlement to sexually indulgent behavior. It is the mark of those who abuse power that they mock those they torment by saying they would only stop if they are challenged.
Misogyny will never lack for enablers and apologists. But there is a growing number of women and men who know it is wrong and are loudly and firmly saying "enough!"
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