2-Hot-4-8List: 8 Stupid Ways We’ve Been Defending Manny Pacquiao

(2Hot 4 8List are lists that for various, often obvious reasons, need to be published on a personal capacity, rather than as something that de facto represents the website I love to write for. I hope you enjoy it, because whether or not they ended up on the site, I still worked pretty hard on them, minus the epic graphic design you've come to know and love from the 8List.)

.:2-Hot-4-8List: 8 Stupid Ways We’ve Been Defending Manny Pacquiao:.

Manny Pacquiao is a boxing legend, and a man who has nearly single-handedly put the Philippines on the map. He has used the millions of dollars he has earned to give houses to his constituents in Sarangani. He is a devout Christian, and a renewed husband and father who seems to have left behind his past of gambling and carousing behind in favor of Bible studies and family time when he’s not training for his next blockbuster fight.

Sometime last week, almost all of that fell to the wayside when he was quoted as saying that same-sex relations were “mas masahol pa sa hayop.” Multiple rebukes  and Nike dropping its sponsorship deal later, the backlash against Manny isn’t even done yet. He currently runs the risk of disqualification due to the unfair media mileage he gains from his next fight, which none of the other senatoriables can hope to match. Furthermore, former pro wrestler Dave Batista did not take too kindly to Manny's words, and the guy frigging calls himself "The Animal."

If you’re a huge fan of Manny Pacquiao, you might be appalled at this point how far things are going south for him, or maybe even thinking that he will be blessed in heaven because people who are persecuted for their faith, according to the Bible, will be rewarded.

Except if you actually take a moment to read your Bible, you might disagree with that, too, because Matthew 6:1-3 is pretty clear about that... 

1"Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. 2"So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3"But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,…"

It seems like a no-brainer to defened a man who fought his way out of poverty and brought us so much pride as one of the best boxers in the world of all time. Unfortunately, his past achievements do not grant him a pass for any stupid shit he might do, because why the hell would it?

Here are 8+1 specific ways people defending Manny Pacquiao air out their ignorance...

Honorable Mention: "You are bigoted towards bigotry. That makes you a hypocrite."

Logical Fallacies Involved: Tu quoque, ad hominem, non sequitur

First of all, allow me to introduce you to the realization that policing my tone is bullshit. If Manny didn't police his tone for the benefit of the LGBT, why should I? I will be as abrasive as I want, not only because he didn't earn me being nice to him when he spoke that way, but also because being nice never won any revolutions. The suffragettes didn't get their vote without a lot of protests. The black people in America didn't get emancipation without a frigging civil war, and they had to fight a bunch more just to get equal rights, too. We didn't drop Marcos like a bad habit by asking him nicely, and the EDSA revolution was as "nice" as revolutions can get, but we sure didn't do it "nicely" just because nobody got killed. It's not like those chants against Marcos were positive slogans of encouragement for him, were they?

Secondly, my intolerance of intolerance isn't an act of hypocrisy, because doing the opposite would be an act of cowardice. When a bigot says they hate a race or a gender, they do so with no logical reason behind it (no, the Bible in and by itself is not enough as a logical reason, by virtue of it being a book of faith). But when someone rebukes a bigot, they do so by arguing using logic and reason. Just because some people may act purely off of emotion does not erase the fact that the vastly overwhelming amount of dissent has been based on the logical counterargument that contrary to Manny's beliefs, animals indeed practice homosexual behavior. Factually correcting Manny isn't an act of bigotry now, is it?

As someone on debate.org put it succinctly:

"A bigot is someone who makes generalizations about a group of people and then acts on a hatred of that group of people. To act inhospitably toward such a person is not bigotry, because it does not involve generalization (emphasis mine). It is, rather, a reaction to the hatred of a single, particular person. Such an act, by definition, is not bigotry."

Lastly, if the word "bigot" upsets you so much, then why does it surprise you when the LGBT gets upset about being told they are "masahol pa sa hayop?" Have you considered that for a moment?

P.S. It also doesn't make me gay if I support gay marriage any more than supporting saving the environment makes me an eco-bag.

.:8. “You’re being oversensitive.”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: Non sequitur, ad hominem, double standards

Just because an issue may not be important to us does not mean that it isn’t important, period. Some of us care about animal rights. Some of us care about the environment. Some of us care about human rights, of which LGBT rights clearly falls under.

Everyone has rights, okay?

If it alarms you that so many people were up in arms and so angry, please realize what was said. It was a comparison that likened the LGBT to being “more savage than animals.” Those were fighting words. You do not say those things endearingly. You do not say those things in a friendly manner.

Yet why is it that while people go out of their way to not make a big deal about Manny’s words, when the LGBT and their allies respond, people go out of their way to make a big deal about the responses? Suddenly, people who were okay with hurting the LGBT weren’t okay with hurting Manny, as if only Manny was deserving of protection.

Manny is a multi-millionaire. Even if every sponsor he currently has pulled out on him, he would still have a lot of money to live with. Meanwhile, the LGBT are fighting for little more than basic rights all of us straight people already enjoy. I hope you can appreciate the difference of what’s at stake here.

If anyone's being oversensitive, it's the people being all up in arms for Pacquiao as if he can't take it. He's rich, he thinks God is on his side. I'm pretty sure he'll be fine. Meanwhile, the LGBT constantly finds the church trying to take them away from the anti-discrimination bill because the church apparently needs to be given the legal right to discriminate against them.

.:7. “We have other issues to worry about, like China putting up missiles on our disputed territories.”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: False dichotomy, strawman argumentation

People can care about more than one issue at a time. To say that someone talking about the Manny Pacquiao issue doesn’t care about China, or Syria, or ISIS is to create a false dichotomy where we can only care about one issue but not the other.

What exactly are we gonna do about China, in the first place? Oh, right. We don't really have solutions. We just want people to stop talking about Manny. Silencing! Wonderful.

Not even Heneral Luna is sure what we're supposed to do about them.

This realization that we can care about multiple issues at a time actually goes double for how we should vote during the elections. If the one and only issue you go by for electing your officials is whether or not they want to deny gay people their human rights, then you might want to expand your criteria a bit, because even if Manny Pacquiao’s politics agreed with you 100%, why would you want to vote someone who almost never went to work to do the job he was elected to do?

.:6. “Hindi ba si Miriam din, anti-gay? Diba sabi ni Rizal, mas malanasa pa tayo sa isda kung hindi natin mahalin ang sarili nating wika? Bakit hindi kayo galit sa kanila?!?”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: False dichotomy, faulty analogy, strawman argumentation, non sequitur, argumentum ad absurdum

You will notice that most people who got angry at Manny were willing to set aside the gay marriage debate in favor of calling out his choice of words. Miriam did not use the kind of cutting words she is known for using when the topic was about the LGBT. This is because the LGBT and their allies, in trying to keep the peace, can and do respect opinions to an extent (even if really, they shouldn’t, if the opinion is woefully misinformed), even if their opinion is clearly being disrespected by the very choice of words of the people on the other side (protip: calling them abominations and Sodomites would never endear you to them.).

As for Jose Rizal, what he said was a statement about one’s love for the language. Whether one uses Filipino or not is a matter of choice, not an essential component of one’s being, and if it were, hey, who am I to stop anyone from being pissed at Rizal, right? When one says that homosexuality is “mas masahol pa sa hayop,” it means that the very being of a person (remember, you can’t choose to be gay any more than straight people chose to be straight) is being insulted.

Again, those are fighting words. You don't get to sugarcoat them now just to pretend he was being endearing about it. That's about as logical as saying "with all due respect, fuck you." May "due respect" naman, diba?

Don't make Yosemite Sam mad!

.:5. “Tama naman sinabi niya, eh! Nasa Bibliya iyan.”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: Appeal to authority, double standards, factual errors, cherry-picking, non sequitur

There are a lot of things wrong according to the Bible…

Shall we prohibit slavery or shellfish? Let’s go with shellfish.

Yet people will go through amazing lengths to excuse all these other behaviors, kesyo Old Testament, kesyo context, and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, it seems only they can do that (hence, a double standard), because once someone points out the context of Sodom and Gomorrah, or points out that the only thing mistaken as condemnation of homosexuality in the New Testament was actually about shrine prostitutes, and was never a direct quote from Jesus, who literally had nothing to say about homosexuality in the Bible, they magically insist that people should take the Bible on face value.

Pictured: face value.

As we can see above, let's not forget that it's Manny himself who just loves quoting Leviticus when he points out that the Bible says gays should be put to death, so he's clearly not discounting the Old Testament for his argument. But then, how does he weasel out of Leviticus 20:10, if that's the case?

10"If there is a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death."

Well, that's awkward. But, hey, that’s not the same, right? Only one side can look at context when cherry-picking which laws of the Bible should still be followed.

And, oh. Manny was also factually incorrect when he said that no animals engage in homosexual behavior.  If we made a bunch of 8Lists featuring these animals, it would take around 200 lists before we’re done.

Lastly, even if it were in the Bible, it’s irrelevant. Let’s be clear about one thing: there is a separation between church and state. Churches are free to never marry gay couples due to religious freedom and the separation clause. However, this also means that if the government decided to give equal rights to the LGBT on the topic of marriage, then the churches have no say on this. As they shouldn’t. The marriage we speak about here is a legal, civil procedure: not a religious ceremony. Please do not forget that.

We can't keep making up excuses for Manny Pacquiao while we keep making excuses against doing right by the LGBT who certainly are also made up of productive members of society. Why do we afford so much special consideration for Manny while we deny the LGBT the most basic of human rights? Because we don't like what they do with their sex life? That's pretty fucked up, if you ask me.

.:4. “Tingnan niyo: yung marriage ang ‘masahol pa sa hayop,’ hindi yung pagiging LGBT. Ang problema sa inyo, hindi kayo marunong umintindi.”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: Faulty semantics, cherry-picking, double standards

This argument is ridiculous because of one plain and simple fact: Manny’s justification for calling something “masahol pa sa hayop” was that animals did not perform these things. If he meant marriage as “masahol pa sa hayop,” then it would be ridiculous, because straight couples get married too, but no animal actually ever gets married. No, really. Look it up. Animals getting married by their own volition? Not a thing.

Not pictured: the part where it was the dogs' idea to get married.

What does this mean? Well, this only means that, regardless of the full interview that supposedly “explains everything,” Manny was not in any way equivocating when he made his statements. It was pretty much gay sex to him which was “masahol pa sa hayop,” which again emphasizes the disturbing fascination LGBT detractors have over what happens in LGBT bedrooms.

You can insist on context all you want, but demanding context only weakens your point further: he is answering a question as a senatorial candidate, and not as a pastor. That was the context of the question. If he knew the difference between the two like any decent politician ought to, then he would know better than to compare the LGBT to being worse than animals, because no matter how much you try to sugarcoat his words, those words were fighting words. You don't say shit like that to people and expect them to just smile and say "yeah, you're right. Mas masahol nga ako sa hayop."

.:3. “Bakit nung binabanatan siya at ang kanyang nanay sa comedy bars, narining mo ba siya magreklamo? And why are you so bigoted against bigotry? Isn’t that being hypocritical?”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: Tu quoque, ad hominem, false equivalence, hasty generalization,

If Yeng Constantino can say that not all Christians are like Manny, surely, it is easy to point out that not all LGBT are Vice Ganda. Vice Ganda is not the be-all and end-all of the LGBT community.

No, really. He's not.

And even if Vice were, that does not invalidate his point. That he jokes about looking like a horse doesn’t mean that it’s okay for people to now call him “masahol pa sa hayop” because of what he does in his bedroom.

Furthermore, the difference is pretty clear: Manny’s statements inform his legislative agenda, and are clearly a perpetuation of the continued ignorance of the separation of church and state in this country. A joke in a comedy bar will not achieve anything remotely like that anytime soon. It is the sheer impact of such speech that explains why so much more weight is placed on what Manny had to say. He is running for the Senate: he, of all people, should know better.

You really cannot argue that those two things are equivalent to each other, because they clearly aren't.

.:2. “Crab mentality! You are suppressing his freedom of speech and his right to an opinion, especially after you made Nike drop him as an endorser.”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: Non sequitur, red herring

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of said speech. In fact, the backlash Manny is receiving is proof that freedom of speech exists, because these other people are now using their freedom of speech to refute Manny’s assertions. Some might even say that Manny’s speech is no longer even protected speech because it could fall under “hate speech,” which, I admit, is debatable at this point.

Opinions aren't magic. Just because you claim something is an opinion, and just because you claim this opinion was formed by the Bible does not mean that it is beyond question and beyond criticism. It does not follow that your entitlement to an opinion means you are also entitled to not being met with any form of dissent for your ideas. Nuh-uh. That's not how this works.

Imagine if life had traffic signs for logical thinking.

It is also not “crab mentality” to want to rebuke Manny Pacquiao for his rampant homophobia. Ano yun? Kesyo “hero” siya, hindi na siya pwedeng pagsabihan? Hindi na siya pwedeng magkamali? Oh, please. The problem with this country is that we put too many people above scrutiny just because they've done something for us. No, they don't get a pass. Why should they?

Nike is not the government. And at no point in dropping Manny did it mean that Manny can no longer say what he wants, because he clearly still does. Manny Pacquiao’s freedom of speech is guaranteed insofar as people also have their freedom of speech to call him out on it, insofar as Nike could also use its freedom of speech to distance itself from Pacquiao.

This goes double for the people who are expressing their none too charitable opinion about Manny right now. Manny had his turn. Why do we want to deny everybody else their turn? Or do we only want freedom of expression for ideas we agree with, while others should remain censored and silenced?

Whether they did it for humanitarian or economic reasons is besides the point. Nike just did it: just as people who don't like what Nike did are free to burn their shoes. It's a free country.

.:1. “He is being persecuted for his beliefs.”:.

Logical Fallacies Involved: Non sequitur, red herring, ad misericordiam

You will notice that so many candidates also do not believe in legalizing same-sex marriage. If you listen to the  interviews, you would notice that most senatoriables actually share that opinion. Yet only Pacquiao was crucified the way he was over it. Why is that?

So oppressed, you guys!

This is because he was the only one who went the extra step of comparing the LGBT to animals. He was the only one who decided to include something decidedly hateful: a slur on a group of people not even for something they chose to do (I would have no qualms calling, say, ISIS, as a bunch of terrorists, but I wouldn’t lump all Muslims with them), but for what they are.

Yes, what Manny said is a slur. Please stop trying to pretend it isn't. You can say a person is black or a person is a n*****. They are both factually correct, but one of them is a slur while the other is not.

It is in going the extra mile to hurt these people, going out of his way to extend a message that is divisive and painful, that Manny now gets all the blowback he is getting. It doesn’t matter if he is a great humanitarian. It doesn’t matter if he brings Filipino pride. He is also human. He is also prone to error. And it falls upon us to correct this error, lest we turn Manny into a sacred cow who can do no wrong. This is especially dangerous when we realize that as an aspiring Senator, Manny Pacquiao is supposed to represent all of us, LGBT people included, and yet he doesn’t see these people as equal to him while representing them. He even sees them as worse than animals, if his words were to be believed.

Correcting Manny’s perceptions and of those who agree with him won’t be easy. Some might try doing it nicely, as not a few have. Then again, as Manny himself has demonstrated, not everyone feels the need to get their point across nicely. I obviously don’t. Not today. Not when I see so many kids who feel worthless because their boxing idol told them they were worse than animals. Not when I see suicide cases elevated in the case of the LGBT, because people refuse to acknowledge that words do impact people, even if they're "just words," and especially if they're "just words" of both a boxing icon and a potential legislator who will not work for their welfare, if at all.

In the end, Manny was not persecuted for his beliefs. He was persecuted for being an asshole. A religious asshole who does a lot of charity work yet has repeatedly demonstrated he is not fit for Congress, much less the Senate, yes. But an asshole, nonetheless.

Logical Fallacies 101 (Part 3 Of 6): Argumentum Ad Misericordiam and Moving Goalposts

.:Logical Fallacies 101 (Part 3 Of 6): Argumentum Ad Misericordiam and Moving Goalposts:.

Feeling sorry for him makes him right?!?

Logical Fallacies 101 (Part 1 Of 6): Argumentum Ad Hominem

.:Logical Fallacies 101 (Part 1 Of 6): Argumentum Ad Hominem:.

Hello there! Given that it was April Fool’s Day a couple of days ago and there are a lot of fools out there running around, I feel that it is my civic duty to help enlighten some people so that they wouldn’t spout off and look like a complete idiot while at it.

You may not realize it, but often, in the fine art of argumentation, people are prone to logical fallacies. Now, what are logical fallacies? Logical fallacies are, at their most basic, errors in reasoning. When a person tries to argue and sway you to side with their opinion, that person is capable of arguing fallaciously, particularly when they make an argument that has not been well thought out.

The problem is most people throw these arguments about without realizing that they don’t strengthen their position at all. Worse, some of them look downright silly, because instead of giving simple, factual arguments, they would use their anger, or perhaps their limited anecdotal experience, or just their flat-out ignorance to try to win an argument.

Don’t fall for it. Don’t let it work. Seriously.

Over the course of the next six articles are a few common logical fallacies, with matching examples. As a disclaimer, yes, these articles will also be prone to their own share of logical fallacies (More so the comments, I'm guessing.), but one hopes that the point is not lost despite that fact.

Argumentum Ad Hominem

What an eloquent rebuttal!!!

On Gods With Feet Of Clay, And The Filipino Dream (Or,What I REALLY Wanted To Say About Manny And Willie.)

.:Gods With Feet Of Clay:.

The past couple of weeks has been an exercise in rationalization for a culture built upon deifying celebrity and elevating them far above and beyond the standards by which we expect of mere mortals such as ourselves.

Some of the issues seem petty when you look at it, really. A famous celebrity announces that she is leaving the very thing that has made her famous in the first place, and instead of having people wish her well, some of her fans actually feel betrayed, as if suddenly, what she wishes to do with her life no longer takes precedence over what her fans want her to do.

Couple that with the fact that she probably isn’t even leaving but probably setting up for something else, and you can see how the overreactions from certain people, practically calling her a traitor to a cause that doesn’t even seem to be a particularly earth-shattering cause to give up your hopes and dreams over in the first place, becomes rather silly. Maybe even pathetic.

The power of celebrity exists. There is no point in denying that. But just as we cannot allow them to be anything more than human by virtue of their celebrity, neither should they be anything less than human by virtue of their celebrity. They have their own lives to lead, their own choices to make, and if we truly support them or believe in them, we must realize that we have no right to demand from our celebrity to abandon their own wishes just to cater to our every whim.

And one guesses that’s exactly what is at work here: a very disheartening gap between the idol and the worshippers, a chasm that is ever-widened by how much slack we are willing to cut our personal heroes so long as they continue to entertain us and cater to our every whim. And how that gap is made even more insurmountable when the inevitable betrayal happens, our vicarious hopes and dreams shattered in the failure of our erstwhile beloved god, turning the altar we once worshipped upon into the pillar we wish to scourge them upon in the blink of an eye.

And yet, through it all, they will move on and not really give a damn about what we think, say, do, or feel. When we realize that we have lived through someone for so long that we’ve forgotten to live our own lives, what happens? What do we do with ourselves, then?

The Fists Of Fury

As I wrote in my article on Manny Pacquiao, there is no question that he is one of the greatest boxers of all time. He is, without a doubt, the best one of this decade, and he has been more than well-rewarded financially and socially on the back of his fifty-two hard-earned victories inside the boxing ring. Nobody can take that away from him.

Sports heroes tend to get a pass in a lot of things. It’s rather easy to see, and it was quite fortuitous I was reading Michael Leahy’s book while I was thinking about this. It put a lot of things into perspective for me and allowed me to step back and look at the bigger picture. In the sporting world, it doesn’t matter if you philander, gamble compulsively, get into fights, or heaven forbid, rape someone. So long as you persist in your winning ways, all is forgiven.

Is this right? Of course not. But you see, it’s understandable: what does a basketball fan care about what his idol does in his bedroom? That’s not a part of the game, and that’s irrelevant to how many points he can score in a game, or how many assists he can dish out.

What people are forgetting is that nobody was critiquing Manny Pacquiao, the boxer. They were critiquing Congressman Manny Pacquiao, the guy who was not doing his job when he really should have, by not properly casting his vote for or against the impeachment of the Ombudsman.

Being a boxing legend does not excuse him from being a lousy congressman. The ever-predictable Paclanders are too busy blaming @momblogger not only for the embarrassment caused by Pacquiao leaving Twitterlandia, but even for his choice of words. And then they had the nerve to say that he meant it in jest, so lighten up.

Lighten up? Really? Lighten up?!?

Weren’t you the same people who refused to lighten up when Alec Baldwin made an off-hand joke about Filipina mail-order brides? Weren’t you the same people who refused to lighten up when Teri Hatcher made a joke in a comedy show about Filipino med schools? Weren’t you the same people who refused to lighten up when Chip Tsao made a satirical article that was making deliberately inflammatory statements to expose the bullying tactics of mainland China? And now you’re telling people to lighten up? Really?

Look: you can’t dictate how other people should feel. If they took offense, they have every right to take offense. And as a Congressman and as someone who has been trying so hard to maintain a certain modicum of role-modelness, Manny should have known better than to make a flippant statement like that. You don’t get to dictate what should be or shouldn’t be offensive to people and then dismiss them by virtue of your own thick-skinnedness because you’d take any insult from your lord and savior Pacquiao as a validation rather than a slight.

Manny Pacquiao’s recent misadventures were not the fault of the people who called him out on Twitter. It was the fault of a man who chose to run for public office when clearly, he had more pressing priorities than the welfare of his own district.

There’s nothing wrong with being a boxing legend, but there’s something wrong with shirking on one’s responsibility and then expecting everyone to just understand. No, not everyone understands, nor are they required to. Unlike you, Mr. Pacquiao, we can’t just take a month or two off work if we feel like beating a Mexican up for $20M. Your deficiencies as a congressman are not beyond question, because how well you punch has nothing to do with how well you lead your constituency.

So to those Paclanders who can’t get this into their heads: all the people on Twitter ever did was to tell a man to do his job. The one he ran for public office for. I think it’s ridiculous that anyone could possibly obfuscate the issue just because he’s a boxing legend. If he didn’t want to do his job, he shouldn’t have applied for the job in the 2010 elections to begin with. The tone argument is beside the point, and does not erase the fact that Honorable Pacquiao is still not doing his job.

How many of us here can fully expect to be praised for not doing your job? I sure can’t.

Willieng Pawns

It was an issue I felt strongly about, albeit I recognized I was relatively powerless in comparison to the originator of the news to me, Aileen Apolo, or the one whom I passed the news onto, MomBlogger. When I saw Jan-Jan’s video, I was shocked at how callous everyone around him was. The kid was crying. He was frightened. And yet, despite all of that, Willie Revillame did not show any signs of easing up on the kid, and still made him do his schtick, which proved extremely disturbing, as the kid gyrated like “a macho dancer,” as Willie Revillame himself put it.

I have despised Willie’s shows for years already, although he isn’t the only one whose tacky and trashy programming I’ve despised. It’s ironic how much more heart a Jerry Springer ripoff like Amy Perez’s Face To Face has, compared to a show like Willing Willie, that’s supposed to be giving joy and hope to the Filipino masses. Fabucelles shares my sentiments, to say the least.

We’ve heard that line a million times before: nagpapasaya lang kami at nagbibigay ng pag-asa. But at what cost does this joy and hope come?

Ridiculously long snaking lines for hopefuls who wish to get into the TV studio for a remote shot at riches, some of them doing this routine for weeks: weeks that could have instead been spent actually looking for a productive job instead of hoping to get a crack at that money tree Willie has been bandying about?

People of all ages selling their dignity for a few thousand bucks, then once the well has run dry, they’d run right back in line to do it all over again?

A fatal stampede, resulting in the deaths of 78 people. So much for “saya at pag-asa” for 78 lives snuffed out due to poor planning and terrible logistics?

Are all of these sins placed solely upon the head of one Willie Revillame? Of course not. But he is the man fronting the show that has showcased this kind of exploitative behaviour more than any other show, not only as its main host, but as one of its top producers. He is a control freak who would lash out at a cameraman who is so much as out of place, as a perfectionist and a consummate workaholic. Nobody can take that away from the man.

In fact, let’s give credit where credit is due: he has probably given out more money through his sponsors than any three to five different local charitable institutions you can pick at random, combined, almost all of this money going to the poor, the downtrodden, and ultimately, the desperate.

Unfortunately, it’s precisely that desperation that has allowed Willie’s blinded fans to give him a pass on anything he has ever done. With each victory he scores atop his unimpeachable soapbox, Willie’s confidence has turned into outright smugness, knowing full well that he has more clout than anyone willing to call him out on the mockery he has made of the Filipino masses.

The ends do not justify the means. Otherwise, it would be okay to lie, cheat, and steal just to get money. Entertainment is never an excuse for crass behaviour and lewd sensationalism. Giving hope and helping others is never going to wash away the blood of the 78 lives snuffed all in the name of this hope and help. If you made your officemates laugh in the pantry all the time, will that save you from getting fired if you embezzled the company’s money? Can your good intentions undo the hurt you have caused with your thoughtless actions?

And yet again, people tell us to “lighten up, it’s just a TV show!” Really? Really?!? Just a TV show that has resulted in the deaths of 78 people (Let’s not play coy here: Willing Willie = Wowowee.)? Just a TV show that has made it seem like exploitation and child abuse are just normal things we should come to expect from Philippine television? Just a TV show where people sell their souls for a few thousand pesos, yet not really elevating their lives afterwards? Really? That’s it?!?

No, you douchebags! It’s not just a TV show. It’s a mirror of the kind of society we live in that is not only on the verge of tolerating the abuse of a child on national television, but even making it his fault that he got treated like that, because that’s what he wanted to do when he auditioned! Woooow!

Allow me to educate you for a moment here. When Willie said that it was Jan-Jan’s idea to dance like a macho dancer, Willie has resorted to Victim Blaming, a phenomenon where instead of placing the blame squarely on the offender, we instead point to the victim. If, for example, a woman gets raped, it’s not the rapist’s fault: it’s the woman’s fault, because she dresses too “sluttily”, or she led the rapist on. What kind of backwards thinking is that?!?

Jan-Jan is six years old. The people screening him were far older than that, and Willie’s what? Forty-something? These are people who should have known better. Instead, after seeing Jan-Jan dance the way he did, Willie asked him to do it again, and again, and again! Where’s the concern there? Or is this because it causes so much “joy” and “hope” to see a desperate kid dance like a macho dancer for a few thousand bucks? Ang saya-saya ko naman makita yan! I’m sorry, but I can’t get off of Schadenfreude from a six-year old kid.

And the parents? They’re okay with it? So Jan-Jan has lousy parents, who tolerate having a kid who can dance like a macho dancer for the entertainment of people. Does that suddenly just absolve Willie Revillame? Really? It does? Or is that less an absolution of Willie Revillame, but also an indictment of Jan-Jan’s parents, putting them in the same police line-up as Willie and the vultures backing this mockery of a show?

In all honesty, it’s sad that instead of a call for unity, we’ve had people saying those among us indignant now are hypocrites. Let’s ignore the fact that only now is social media finding the clout to get things done, compared to even just a year or two ago, when it was just next to ignored. Let’s ignore how many celebrities are now on Twitter, whereas they were nowhere to be found online just last year. Let’s ignore that this is a catalyst for action, and not just a knee-jerk reaction of hypocrisy. Let’s even ignore that there is a huge gap between fully consenting adults dancing sexily for a living and a six-year old dancing sexily for a one-time windfall.

Common sense has flown out the window. Iya Justimbaste is probably laughing now, pointing at the folly of the Filipinos who make up excuses for the imperfections of their gods like Pacquiao and Revillame.

Newsflash: they were never perfect. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you will realize that they should be held accountable for their shortcomings when it does worse than just affect themselves.

Our gods have feet of clay. It shouldn’t have been a surprise at all, and it shouldn’t be our fault that we are just pointing out the truth. The truth hurts. The sooner you can accept it, the sooner we can do something about it.

This was never about rich versus poor. Don’t let the Pacquiao’s, the Estrada’s, or the Revillame’s of the world fool you. These people are far richer than any of us so-called rich people, to begin with. It has always been a question of the willingness of the Filipino person to do the right thing and correct the wrong thing, no matter how inconvenient it might be.

Throw away everything and boil down to the essentials, and then ask yourself with all honesty: is it truly impossible to help people without resorting to sexy dancers, exploiting sob stories, and fatal stampedes? And if our answer is “no, it’s not impossible,” then why the Hades are we tolerating the status quo?

Think about it.

An Open Letter To Adam Carolla

.:An Open Letter To Mr. Adam Carolla...:.

Image courtesy of Judd Sta. Maria.

Dear Mr. Carolla,

Unlike most other Filipinos, I actually remember you. I remember the fact that you were one of those guys on “The Man Show”, along with Jimmy Kimmel, before Joe Rogan took over and sent that show down the drain. You also had something to do with “Crank Yankers”, but the less said about that stupid show, the better. I also remember Jimmy was the funny one (Not “funni-er” because that connotes that you yourself are actually funny.) between the two of you and that probably explains why he’s hosting the late night show right now and you’re not, but that’s not really the point of this letter.

See, Mr. Carolla, after your recent diatribe against Manny Pacquiao and the Filipino people, I have but two things to tell you: thank you, and screw you.

Thank you, Mr. Carolla, for stating the truth, however harsh it may be. I realize not too many of my countrymen see it, but you were telling it like it is: for too long, as a nation, a huge swath of the Philippine population has pinned its hopes on a guy who happens to punch better than anybody else. Granted, it’s awesome that the Philippines is being put on the map for having arguably the best boxer the sport has ever seen since Mike Tyson, but the hero worship is indeed a tad too much.

Thank you, Mr. Carolla, for reminding the Filipino people that they still have a lot to clean up in their own backyard. That you assume the country is known for sex tours isn’t exactly a very rare occurrence. In fact, it’s a rather commonplace assumption, if anything. Just one quick look at Cafe Havana in Greenbelt 3 already sorta feeds that idea with ease. You’re absolutely right that there is misplaced nationalistic pride in a boxer, yet we are quick to ignore and even downplay the things that keep the Philippines from being a better nation than it could or ought to be.

Thank you, Mr. Carolla, for pointing out the sheer inanity for a boxer who takes several blows to the head for a living to want to run for public office. What kind of leadership do we expect to see from Manny Pacquiao if he were to be elected? Do we think for even one moment that it would be any good at all? Somehow, I doubt it.

You make valid points, and you may or may not be doing a comedy radio show which allows you some slack for your racist and over the top comments against Filipinos, the suspicion of drug use, and your apparent man-crush on Floyd Mayweather (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.). I could be very much just overreacting, and for all I know, you’re actually a great lampoon artist, a satirist as nuanced and as eloquent as Chip Tsao or George Carlin or... who am I kidding? You’re Adam f’ing Carolla. You’re second fiddle to Jimmy Kimmel on The Man Show, for crying out loud! “Nuanced” and “eloquent” are the last two words I’d expect to use to describe you.

So Mr. Carolla, screw you for pandering to the lowest common denominator and resorting to gutter trash humor to get your point across. If I took this incident on its own, then I’m sure I’d have easily understood you and sided with you, but you clearly have a track record for making racist slurs, then crying crocodile tears afterwards when the fear of losing advertiser dollars would hit you. I think the ching-chong incident and the Hawaiian slagfest would probably be enough evidence of this.

Screw you Mr. Carolla, for portraying a character that may or may not be an extension of your real self: an unenlightened, redneck, ugly American stereotype who caricatures himself by mocking other country stereotypes yet being blissfully ignorant of the fact that he is a walking, talking, blithering one himself. We have more than enough of those characters already, from Larry the Cable Guy to Jimmy Wang Yang. Did we need to scrape the bottom of the barrel and have you do it, too?

Screw you Mr. Carolla, simply because I find it appropriate to slag on you for the unfunny excuse for a comedian that you are. You’re all the shock of Howard Stern minus any of the substance, quite frankly. See, I don’t really care whether or not you were right about us Filipinos, Mr. Carolla: I just don’t think very highly of your commentary at all, not with your bigoted commentary against Muslims here.

You have, or at least, your character has, a track record for bigotry, Mr. Carolla, and I frankly think that as free as you are to express your opinions, I’m equally free to think your opinions are crap. If you’re serious about them, then even more condemnation for you is in order. If you meant them as a joke, then congratulations: you have shown us how to detest inherently detestable ideas, and you’re doing your job right, for once.

I do not have to despise you as a person, but I can despise the ideas you espouse: ideas of racism, of intolerance, of the rejection of anything that is Other than the self. I despise what your ideas stand for, no matter the intent behind the ideas, as any decent human being ought to. I hope that you are not as redneck as you seem, and that you secretly despise these very same ideas that you espouse, and only espouse them to make people intolerant of intolerance, the way I certainly feel at this point. In fact, I don’t feel an ounce of indignation over what you had to say about Filipinos. I feel indignation over the fact that you seem to have built a comedy career out of racial slurs (Not to mention misogynistic slurs from your “Man Show” days.), the least offensive of them being the painful-but-true bombs you lobbed at the Filipino people. I feel indignation over the denigration of brilliant Asians as merely “ching-chong” people, of Hawaiians as “retards and in-breds”, and I do worry that you may very well be a racist-in-denial, hiding behind the veneer of comedy much in the same way Michael Richards was.

Still, it’s not my job to judge you as a human being and to stoop to your perceived level. However, as a guy who used to catch your show on Jack TV, I do feel compelled to let you know that I was never terribly amused by your antics then, and I continue to not be amused by your antics now. You’re not very funny at all, and your ethnicity or religion probably has zero to do with that. It’s more likely got everything to do with your absolute lack of talent as a performer.

Ultimately, I do agree with most of what you have to say about Filipinos, except for one thing: Charice Pempengco is someone to be more proud of than Manny Pacquiao. But that’s just me, I guess.

Yeah, baby!