below is an article on the rape and sexual morality in
the philippines, you might be interested.

this article was written in view of the recent news
about a 22 year Filipina raped by 6 US Servicemen in
the Philippines.

btw, i saw the photos in your weblog, mooi!

greetings,
consie (pinay sa holland-gabriela and filippijnes
jongeren verbond)

——————-
The ” Pera o Puri” (Money or Chastity) Mentality:
Rape & Sexual Morality in the Philippines

The rape of yet another Filipina by US servicemen has
managed to surface a host of issues, many of them of
long-standing controversies.

In recent days what for one woman was already a
nightmare, became a veritable feast of issues for many
others, ranging from the national sovereignty and the
Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), US militarism,
anti-terrorism and the US government’s toleration (and
encouragement) of the abuses and excesses of its
servicemen abroad.

On one hand the GMA administration has all but brushed
off the rape case as unimportant in the face of the
“greater good,” that is in this case, the VFA and the
“anti-terrorism” campaigns and exercises by the US
government. On the other hand, a host of groups have
made reference to the case to drumbeat the issue of
the VFA.

For the media, the sexist angle of focusing on the
woman’s reputation was and is a continuing selling
point for their stories. Was she a bar girl? Was she
a sex worker or wasn’t she? She’s a college graduate.
She’s no sex worker.

Tabloids have kept the rumor mills running by
speculating on purported offers of an out of court
settlement by the US servicemen, using such terms as ”
Suhol Sumingaw.” A case has not even been filed yet.
Apparently however this woman is already on trial.

According to reports, the woman has been in a state of
shock since the incident. Sadly, this sorry state of
affairs may not be helping her deal any better.

On one level, the clamor to relate and highlight the
VFA and US Military Policy to such cases is
understandable. Contrary to media and government
claims, such rapes are not isolated cases. Cases of US
servicemen actually being caught, brought to court on
charges and accused in the first place are indeed rare
but being raped by US servicemen is actually a
relatively known risk among women in prostitution in
the Philippines. The woman in this most recent case
was not a bar girl nor a sex worker but the sexual
violence she was subjected to had nothing to do with
her personal circumstances. Instead, it had everything
to do with how women are subjected to sexual violence
as a consequence of sex and gender – of being a woman
in a world where the experience of sex itself, is
predominantly male defined.

In one recent focused group discussion by Womenlead
Foundation, Inc., women who were once in prostitution
shared their own experiences of having been exposed to
all sorts of violence in brothels, bars or the
streets. One woman however recounted how her
experience of having been involved in akyat barko (or
prostitution which happens in US military ships docked
on Philippine ports) as among the most harrowing. She
spoke of women being most vulnerable when they take
the risk of coming aboard a military vessel because
when they do, they had nowhere to run to if and when,
things went bad. She told us a story about one woman
who was attacked by a serviceman and how her lifeless
body was seen floating near the ship later in the
night. These dangers it seemed were treated like
“built-in risks” of the “job,” and such incidents were
rarely reported, let alone any formal charges filed.
After all, these women knew most people don’t believe
it when a woman in prostitution cries rape.

Yet the seriousness of these many issues
notwithstanding, what has become very bothering is how
this lone woman is now seemingly bearing the entire
burden of the VFA, the US anti-terrorism campaign, US
military presence all by herself, because of what
happened to her. Many groups are even spelling out the
terms of what justice is and should be in her case,
feeding the media frenzy of moralizing on the news
about an out of court settlement.

Indeed, in a case like this, settling the criminal
case would be out of the question since a public crime
like rape is within the DOJ prosecutor’s authority.
She or he will decide whether or not a case should be
filed given the evidence and from there on, an
information in court can be filed. Lets get this
straight. Criminal cases , once filed, can never be
legally “settled” in or out of court. The case may be
withdrawn if there is not enough evidence or it can be
dismissed for failure to prosecute along the way.

However, the civil aspect of the case is a different
case altogether.The woman in this case (and any
private complainant) has every right to enter a
compromise agreement on the aspect of damages later in
court or otherwise, assisted by her counsel.

The problem with the idea of “compromise agreements”
in local culture is that it is unfortunately equated
with pay offs and the cases of bribery amongst ranking
government officials who in violation of their sworn
duties, influence the outcome of cases either by
pressuring complainants to back out or execute an
affidavit of desistance. The local term suhol is
precisely this: a bribe.

This is where the public (and interest groups wanting
to assist this woman) should be cautioned about
getting on their high horses and moralizing about the
amounts accepted by victims of crime in the settlement
of civil cases, specifically sexual abuse cases.

Sadly, this pera o puri mentality is so widespread,
even victims themselves who enter into such
settlements often express feelings of shame because
all too often, they feel the pressure from all sides.
After all, in a culture such as ours, sexual purity (
i.e. the myth of physically demonstrable virginity) is
purportedly “priceless,” and should not be available
for any amount of bidding. Yet at the same time, this
same pera o puri mentality is the primary purveyor of
the belief that women in prostitution are precisely
not “rapable” any more because by being sexually
deviant (i.e. unchaste), they have lost the right to
refuse all sexual advances and even sexual assault.

It seems that even if a monetary amount spells out but
one aspect of the legal liabilities of the accused,
the woman victim in a sexual abuse case accepting it
(and even defining the terms) is bound to be the one
tried publicly and condemned for her act.

When you think about it, pera o puri expresses the
same binary categories that Filipino women are up
against: you are either chaste (puri) or your chastity
can be bought, (pera). You are either a virgin or a
prostitute. Uncannily, while what makes rape, rape for
women is the lack of consent and the violation of
their will, the sexist standard predetermines the
status of being “rapable” based on notions of “female
chastity.”

In this way, Filipino women are not free to act on or
express their sexuality – that is without ever
escaping the consequences. Filipino women are just
often not free to define their sexuality and in fact
their sexual decisions are often, pre-defined for
them. There is no choice. Its either or. It is pera o
puri. (Carolina S. Ruiz Austria, Senior Lecturer – UP
College of Law)

Overigens ben ik helemaal niet blij met labels… het is een natuurlijke eigenschap van de mens om onderscheid te maken, maar nu we dat eenmaal zelf begrijpen moeten we ook eens leren om daarboven te kunnen staan.

Naar mijn mening is het grootste probleem de discriminatie die zogenaamde ‘allochtonen’ elke dag in hun dagelijks leven en op de arbeidsmarkt meemaken. Vooral de tweede generatie voelt (terecht) dat ze als Nederlandse staatsburgers volgens de wet en volgens de ‘Westerse waarden’ gelijkwaardig behandeld zouden moeten worden. Helaas is de praktijk heel anders.

Ik vraag me af waarom Jan Marijnissen de regering wil vragen of er niet meer gedaan moet worden. Waarom begint de SP niet bij zichzelf? Geef de ‘allochtonen’ in Nederland een stem in de tweede kamer. Luister naar de dagelijkse ervaringen van allochtone Nederlanders en durf voor hun rechten op te komen. Ik ben ervan overtuigd dat de meeste mensen daarvan zullen schrikken. Zeg een keer duidelijk dat discriminatie in Nederland bestaat en dat dat niet kan. Kom een keer openlijk op voor de rechten van goed opgeleide jonge mensen met een Turkse of Marokkaanse achternaam die nergens een baan kunnen vinden.
Er zijn diverse SP afdelingen (bijvoorbeeld Rotterdam en Amsterdam) die heel goed bezig zijn. Neem hun voorbeeld landelijk over.

Het lijkt helaas alsof politiek Nederland weer bezig is over de de ‘allochtonen’ te praten in plaats van met hun te praten.

Er zijn veel redenen te bedenken, maar wie de wijsheid in pacht heeft is vooralsnog onduidelijk. In ding is zeker: kort door de bocht kun je niet zijn rondom de huidige Europese grote stedenproblematiek. Maar dan lees je een stuk van AHA of enkele ingezonden brieven in de diverse kranten en ik kan dan zo ontzettend boos worden. Het ligt natuurlijk allemaal aan de islam en de moslims. En inderdaad, zo vindt AHA, ze zijn niet te vertrouwen. Of ze nu wel of geen naveltruitje dragen, ze moeten bij wijze van spreken de islam afzweren om geloofwaardig te worden als loyale burgers. Ik weet niet hoe het bij andere webloggers zit, maar bij gaat er dan een enorme alarmbel rinkelen! Hallo!! De Spaanse inquisitie hebben we al gehad (De offciele uitleg luidt: Met de Regels van Pamiers van 1211 werd de Inquisitie voor het eerst formeel geïnstitutionaliseerd, en werd de samenwerking tussen kerk en staat vastgelegd. Vanaf dat moment kon de inquisitie de vorm aannemen van een systematische vervolging van de katharen en andere andersdenkenden. ) Ik begrijp niet wat die mensen als AHA, Wilders en Pastors op de samenleving willen afroepen? Haat? Geweld? Een gezellige brandhaard? Je moet de uitwassen van welke groep dan ook aanpakken, maar dan ook alleen de uitwassen door te beweren dat de hele groep (in dit geval de islamitische groep in Nederland) een potentieel gevaar vorm, dan kan er een heksenjacht ontaard worden in Nederland. Met alle gevaarlijke gevolgen van dien…