My Commentary on Duterte's Rape Joke for WomenseNews

My latest piece for Womensenews

May 9, 2016

Photo by Dondi Tawatao

MANILA, The Philippines (WOMENSENEWS)—Although he has been leading his rivals in the pre-election opinion polls, today is the day when the Philippine voters really say what they think of him.

Whether or not he gets elected on May 9 won’t be known for a couple more days, as the votes are counted. In the meantime, everyone should know what he said not long ago when he stood on a stage in a rally in Quezon City, in the northeast part of the National Capital Region.

Rodrigo Duterte, 71, in a bright red collared shirt and with a bulging belly, proudly told a story of a 1989 prison siege. An inmate, he told the cheering crowd, was holding hostages at the Davao City 

Detention Center, in the city in the southern Philippines where Duterte has served as mayor for more than 22 years, among the longest-serving city chiefs in the country.

Duterte recalled the events vividly. There was an assault, then an exchange of gunfire between the troops and inmates. The inmates used the hostages as cover and raped all the women, among them an Australian missionary, he said casually.

The rape of the Australian missionary angered him, he told the crowd. Oh not just because the inmates raped her but because he, the mayor, should have been first in line.

“Son of a bitch, what a waste,” Duterte said in a video that went viral. “I looked at her face, son of a bitch, she looks like a beautiful American actress.”

“What went through my mind,” he continued, “was that they raped her, they lined up. I was angry because she was raped, that’s one thing. But she was so beautiful; the mayor should have been first. What a waste.”

Her name was Jacqueline Hamill, 36 years old, raped by a gang of inmates and her throat slashed. She is among 20 hostages who died in the two-day siege.

That a viable presidential candidate should discuss what happened to her in such terms is incomprehensible.

The grotesque joke drew the ire of the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights, the diplomatic community, women’s groups and ordinary citizens.

“Rape and murder should never be joked about or trivialized. Violence against women and girls is unacceptable anytime, anywhere,” said Australian Ambassador to the Philippines Amanda Gorely, who criticized the mayor for his remarks on Twitter.

Nikki Luna, a Filipina feminist artist based in Manila, was among the first to decry the comments.

"This is by far the best, clearest example and understanding of what is meant by the phrase 'rape culture',” she wrote in a Facebook post. “Watch and listen. Sexual assault, rape, and violence are trivialized, made into jokes, it becomes the 'norm' straight from this 'mayor'."

Gabriela, a militant women’s group, called on the candidate to apologize. “Rape is a criminal offense, a serious crime against humanity. It is no laughing matter. Duterte should know better and must apologize,” the group said.

Several women’s groups here issued a protest statement. “The rape culture in our society persists when officials like Mayor Duterte crack jokes at the expense of rape victims,” it reads. “By making light of the gruesome rape and murder of Jacqueline Hamill, he sends the signal that it is OK to rape women. Mayor Duterte, it is not OK to disrespect women.”

But the mayor sees no reason to say sorry. “Don’t force it. I will never apologize,” Duterte told reporters in a video by CNN Philippines.

Duterte’s supporters see him as the best candidate. They say he is the solution to the country’s woes; crime and corruption that combine with deep poverty. More than a quarter of the Philippines’ 100 million people live below the poverty line, roughly a dollar a day.

The tough talking unapologetic mayor not only jokes about rape but also boasts of his womanizing ways.

Indigenous Women in the Philippines Are Fighting for Their Way of Life

My latest story for Womensenews

They woke up to the smell of gasoline poured on the canvas roofs of their tents at an evacuation center on the grounds of a church, the complaint says.

It was around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 24.

"Immediately after, the tents were set aflame when a lighted torch was thrown in," reads the complaint, which was sent to a U.N. official as well as members of the press. "Five makeshift houses were already consumed by fire when it was put out."

Dormitories near the camp were also burned, according to the complaint.

The attack occurred on the compound of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, or UCCP, in Davao City in the southern province of Davao. Those under attack were over 500 indigenous people from the south of the country, known locally as Lumads.

Five people were hurt, including two children who suffered burns when the canvas roofs melted and fell on their feet.

Now Karapatan, a Manila-based umbrella organization of human rights groups, is waiting to hear back from Chaloka Beyani, U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of internally displaced persons. They submitted the complaint to Beyani at the 31st Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Switzerland, which opened Feb. 29 and runs through March 24.

While the focus of the complaint is on the burning of the encampment, advocates are also looking for help with the deeper problem of the Lumads' displacement pressures.

Legal advocates are lodging this particular complaint, but the Lumad themselves have been doing everything possible to protest on their own behalf.

Month-Long Protest

Late last year about 700 Lumads left their mostly thatched huts and makeshift homes in villages in different parts of Mindanao to travel on foot, by bus and ferry to a camping ground inside the University of the Philippines campus in Quezon City, a two-hour drive outside Manila.

Many were mothers who left their children to join the month-long protest.

One is Minda "Dindin" Dalinan, 36, from the Blaan indigenous tribe. She is a mother to eight children, ages 1 to 17. Dalinan left her children under the care of her husband and relatives. She didn't want to leave them but she knew that joining the protest was something she had to do to try to give them a peaceful life.

"In 2004, the military killed my father. My father is a member of the tribal council in our community. He was stubborn. He did not want to give up our ancestral land so armed men killed him. I just want the killings to stop. My dream is to see an end to human rights violations," Dalinan said.

She comes from the poor farming village of Bacong, Tulunan in North Cotabato in Mindanao, the second of the three island groups of the Philippines in the southernmost part of the country. She is a full-time housewife, taking care of the children while her husband ekes out a living as a farmer.

She spoke with Women's eNews last November inside the Baclaran Church, a popular 1932 Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines.

"Why would a mother like me leave her eight children?" she said. "It's because the human rights violations in our community are so rampant. I have to join this protest. It's too much."

Protesters called their trip "the Manilakbayan," a play on the words Manila, the Philippine capital, and "lakbayan," the Filipino word for journey.

The displaced evacuees at the center of the current U.N. complaint came mostly from remote communities in Davao del Norte and Bukidnon, both in Mindanao. 

They said they were forced to flee because of operations of paramilitary groups in their communities.

Country's Food Basket

Mindanao is considered the food basket of the country, with more than 700,000 hectares of land in the region covered by banana, pineapple, oil palm, rubber and other plantations.

Ten of the poorest of the country's 81 provinces are on the island.

By plane, the distance from Manila is more than 500 miles, or up to two hours away, depending on the province.

More than 500,000 hectares of land in Mindanao, or 12 percent of the region's land, are also covered by various mining concessions, according to industry data. The region ranks fourth in copper, third in gold, fifth in nickel and sixth in chromite deposits in the world.

Indigenous people say they are a business obstacle that mining concerns are leaving up to paramilitary groups, with possible help from the military, to remove.

Months before the Manilakbayan, the different indigenous tribes of Mindanao suffered a series of direct attacks, killings and harassment. The abuses were concentrated in three provinces--Bukidnon, Davao del Norte and Surigao del Sur–that host private Lumad schools that are regulated by the government.

Among the series of incidents against the Lumad, one of the most highly condemned was the displacement on Sept. 1 last year of at least 2,000 residents from the village of Diatagon in Lianga, Surigao del Sur.

Another was the killing of Emerico Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (Alcadev). He was found inside a classroom hogtied, with a stab wound and his throat slit open.

The armed men then killed indigenous community leader Dionel Campos and his cousin Juvello Sinzo, who have campaigning for the protection of ancestral lands, said Josephine Pagalan, 37, a Lumad mother from the village belonging to the Manobo tribe.

"I was there, I saw them kill Dionel Campos and Juvello Sinzo," said Pagalan.

The murder has not been solved and the military has denied any involvement in the attacks, saying that the armed group did not belong to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

International Attention

The incidents have drawn international attention.

On Feb. 12, 62-year-old American playwright and feminist Eve Ensler, author of "The Vagina Monologues," visited the Lumads in the Davao evacuation camp.

She was moved to tears upon hearing of the plight of the Lumads, according to Bulatlat.com, an online news site, which covered her visit.

"They love the earth. They know how the earth operates," Ensler was quoted as saying on the news site. "They are one with the earth and we're destroying them for mining companies, for greed, for capitalism, for exploitation and when you see how beautiful they are, when you see how generous they are, when you see how all they want is to be one with their beautiful trees and their sky and the earth, their rivers – how can any human being be doing this to them?"

Whoever is to blame, Lumad mothers said they want to live peacefully and take care of their children and return home from evacuation camps.

Gertrudes Layal, 43, left her five children, ages 8 to 19, to join the Manilakbayan. "I just want to protest so that we can keep our ancestral land. 

Mining companies want our land. They always promise development, they promise to give us jobs but they do not keep their promises," Layal said.

Pagalan, the Lumad mother from the village of Diatagon, left four children at home to join the protest.

"We want the government to be made accountable for the human rights violations and attacks," she said. "Mining companies promised too many things in the past but they did not deliver. We don't want to give up our land because money can be consumed but land will not perish."