This week we saw how netizens once again reacted when pictures and videos of the PlayGirls dancing and humping a man who was on stage was released in social media. They left nothing to the imagination of the people watching including minor kids and youth. It was not only irresponsible but also unbecoming for a leader to allow such lewd acts to happen. People are now clamoring for the politicians involved to step down and not assume any public post because of how they treat women as sex objects. I, for one, totally agree that any man or woman who treats women as sex objects is not worthy to lead our nation. How can the same leaders who promise to uphold the law and pledge to serve our countrymen – use the very same women for their selfish gain and lust?

What made matters worst was when political leaders involved washing their hands and fool us into thinking that they have nothing to do with it. But wait, there’s more! What is even worst is how some leaders make a case that they see nothing wrong with it. I could only imagine how women in their household are treated. Women are not sex objects used for our personal gain or worst for entertainment.

Isn’t it sad to hear this from people in a position of leadership? But the question remains – who is to be blamed for this PLAYGIRL’s issue? The truth is WE ARE ALL TO BE BLAMED.

Yes, not just Laguna Representative Agarao, or the LP party but us. You and me. I don’t have to prove the point because numbers would show how we are all in some ways part of what happened. I disagree with Senator Franklin Drilon – that this is an isolated case. We all have to open our eyes to see how we are part of this:

• The Philippines is in the top 10 worldwide when it comes to human trafficking.  We as a nation trade humans for our pleasure.

• Local movies that are produced and watched in our nation desensitizes us from sexual sins, adultery, lust and treating women to serve our own pleasure. This also includes people who would download and watch in their private rooms sexual scenes and exposing our kids to age-inappropriate scenes.
• Fathers who neglect their duties as the man of the house and leave their sons and daughters on their own or worst quit on their marriage leaving the mother to raise their kids. We are growing up in a fatherless generation. Young men and women today are being fed a wrong worldview and mindset about sex today because nobody at home is educating them.

• People who surf porn to satisfy their flesh, continually feeding on the objectification of women.

• Publishing houses that frequently publish soft core porn like UNO, FHM, Cosmopolitan and the likes that caters to salivating men looking at naked pictures of women. Sad to say, that even porn magazines like these are within eyesight of minors in local bookstores.

• Noontime shows that features scantily clad women like playgirls to entertain us every afternoon. Fashion shows for underwear that is categorized as fashion and art but when sliced to its root is just another way to say that sex sells.

• Sexual billboards in EDSA and other major thoroughfare plastered for commuters to see.

Imagine, we are being fed culturally every single day how women are objectified, treated as sexual animals for our pleasure. We have been brainwashed to think this is normal. The paradox of how our world operates in a dysfunctional view of sex tells us that what happened in Laguna is bad. At the same time, the continued operation of night clubs in Quezon City, the prostitution in Pampanga, the sexual trafficking in our entire nation continues to be operational, and there seems to be no noise of opposition to this.

We have been desensitized by our sexual culture. We are trained to react online and publicly to call out sexual acts like what happened openly in Laguna but at the same time, neglecting the injustice done to other Filipina women and the miseducation and exposure of young Filipinos to dishonor women. We judge what was openly done but keep our dark secrets of porn, lust, adultery and pre-marital sex.

We cannot continue to condemn the fruits of our culture without dealing with the root of why such fruits abound. And it all starts with us. Let us as a nation, in general, take the blame and decide to do something about the heart of the problem. 

This is our wake up call!