EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains explicit mentions of rape and sexual abuse. Readers are advised to proceed with caution.
And if you felt personally attacked by the title, then it’s best you keep reading.
Violence against women may seem abstract to others; something only heard of or known about through someone close to you going through a similar situation but never personally encountered. But just last October, 72-year-old Gisèle Pelicot bravely came forward to publicize her mass rape case against her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot and the 51 other men implicated in the decade-long sexual abuse. Now, the whole world bears witness to their heinous crimes.
Some of the perpetrators admitted to knowing Gisèle was drugged by her ex-husband, while others thought it to be a “perverse game between the spouses.” Yet, despite the immutable horror embroiled into the evidence—photos and videos from 2011 to 2020 showing strangers aged between 27 and 74 raping and treating a drugged Gisèle like a ragdoll—some of the defendants dared to argue that she had feigned unconsciousness during the assault. The point still remains, and Dominique himself has already confessed to the truth of the matter: all 51 men are rapists.
The gall to even suggest that Gisèle could have somehow consented to the rape is telling of the persistent disregard of women and their autonomy. At some point, you really can’t help but question whether it is a matter of nature or nurture. Have men, for all their predilection as hunters and gatherers, been unable to shake the urge to take and take even what isn’t theirs?
Roots run deep
Gender-based oppression isn’t anything new, but it is truly appalling to see our persistent backwardness. In the case of the Philippines, precolonial women held the same hierarchical power as men by being spiritual guides, priestesses, and healers. Even Mesopotamian culture pointed toward an even division of tasks and household authority, with women as the producers of life while men were the producers of goods.
Colonialism and capitalism disrupted this balance, thus placing women as meager “homemakers” at the bottom of the power structure. As sexual labor became a means of living later on, women’s bodies grew increasingly objectified and seen as pleasurable commodities.
We don’t have to look any further to see the violence reflected in our own lineage. Growing up, we read about it in Jose Rizal’s works. Pia Alba and Maria Clara’s defilement by the hands of Padres Damaso and Salvi was an exposition to the real atrocities of the Spanish friars. World War II saw young Filipinas being used as comfort women by the Japanese, while Martial Law victims were sexually tortured at the hands of their militant captors.
Tracing our track record, hate crimes against women rarely get punished. In the notorious 1982 case of the late actress Pepsi Paloma, she accused comedians Vic Sotto, Joey de Leon, and Ricardo Reyes as her kidnappers and rapists. However, the case was dropped after a public apology was issued that same year. In 2020, former President Rodrigo Duterte granted American marine Joseph Scott Pemberton absolute pardon after having murdered trans woman Jennifer Laude, releasing him four whole years earlier than his sentence on the basis of him “not being treated fairly.” Concurrently, pastor Apollo Quiboloy is still being permitted to run for Senate despite being wanted by the FBI since 2022 for embezzlement, rape, and sex trafficking charges, assumingly enjoying the protection of his friendship with Duterte.
These events seem almost laughably outlandish, but they could not be anymore true. And yet we allow them to pass by us as ridiculous headlines, unknowingly letting ourselves be desensitized to such vile deeds.
Perhaps the most horrifying part is the constant refusal to take accountability for the harm caused. Men often work tirelessly to bury evidence and silence victims. Meanwhile, those who do not actively assault women still enable the cycle through their inaction. This sets a terrifying precedent that sexual crimes are not monstrous enough to prove someone’s lack of good conscience.
No rest for the wicked
Although the Supreme Court no longer requires rape victims to prove they indeed resisted, the battle for justice remains an uphill climb. What’s stopping perpetrators from using manipulative and intimidation tactics to keep people from speaking up? When controversial director Darryl Yap made Paloma’s story the centrifuge of his newest film, it was immediately petitioned by Sotto to be barred from release under the claims of cyber libel. This mirrors the original 1982 charges, which were subverted as a publicity stunt by Paloma’s agency, but not without ex-Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III allegedly coercing Paloma to drop the case.
At present, the Sottos are determined to erase any media that might insinuate they had a hand in her untimely passing, just as they have for the past 20 years. Paloma is not the first woman to be swept under the rug–and certainly won’t be the last—but it is truly sickening to witness men in power only advocate for justice when it serves their personal interest.
It’s not a matter of a lack of facts; it’s that women must exert rigorous effort to be believed. Despite being constitutionally mandated, not every public hospital or local government unit has available rape kits and obstetrician-gynecologists on call to assist victims, making it difficult for them to gather the evidence needed to put their abusers behind bars.
It is true; not all men are horrible. But if you can stomach a joke of misogyny, of violence, of disrespect against women, you are as much of the problem as being “that” man. Gisèle’s lawyer stated that her trial, for the viscerality and vileness of the crime, “has the potential to change society, but society must have the courage to face what rape actually is.”
Does Philippine society have what it takes to face itself and confront the transgressions against the producers of new life? Or is our machismo, strongman nation not man enough to own up to the damages it has caused the fairer sex?
Ask yourself: are you man enough?
This article was published in The LaSallian‘s Menagerie Special 2025. To read more, visit bit.ly/TLSMenagerieSpecial2025.
