Incredibly, the disgraced congressional candidate in Pasig City doesn’t get it. In another campaign event he trotted out a member of his team and commented on her looks, prompting the Commission on Elections to again order him to explain why he should not be charged with a poll offense. 

It’s the second show-cause order issued to the candidate, one Christian Sia, who has yet to deal with the first as of this writing. It’s uncertain if his failure to respond means he has lost his nerve (which seemed considerable last week when he displayed to his desired constituents the quality of the merchandise he is pushing—namely himself—by announcing his availability for sex with female solo parents if he wins the post), or he is now at a loss as to how to continue to frame as politicking the fact that his maliit na biro—his “little joke”—had assumed fierce proportions and bitten him in the ass.

He did not seem mentally ill when he specified that only female solo parents still of child-bearing age were eligible to be listed for a once-yearly assignation with him. It was not a manipulated performance or a stolen vid in which, having had one too many,  he was wistfully wishing for a good lay or two. He—a lawyer and therefore aware of the weight of words and actions, a mother’s son, married (as he declared, as though it absolved him of a declared perversion), possibly a father to children that he presumably means to raise as principled human beings and upright citizens—was addressing voters at a campaign rally. 

This week he was at it again, presenting to his audience a female aide whose past and present heft he deemed pertinent to discuss publicly, in an absurd attempt to climb out of the hole he had dug. 

Now he has to contend with another legal matter: The Supreme Court, responding to petitions seeking sanctions filed against him last week by the Gabriela Women’s Party and two other lawyers, has ordered him to respond within 10 days.

Resolution No. 11116

The Comelec is expected to hit the “joker” with the full force of its Resolution No. 11116, which was issued last Feb. 19 to ensure a fair and anti-discriminatory campaign for the May midterm elections. 

Few knew  of this resolution that is evidently intended to begin to raise the election campaign to a level that would educate and direct the electorate to an informed choice. It prescribes penalties for those who violate its prohibition on sexism, misogyny and other forms of gender-based harassment in campaign activities. From the whirlwind that the Pasig candidate has been reaping, many consider his spiel a classic example of the brute behavior that the Comelec correctly seeks to banish. (Even the senatorial candidate Tito Sotto—who, when he was Senate president during the Duterte administration, insulted the then newly appointed Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, a single mother—has seen fit to say mildly that the Pasig candidate’s statements have no place in the election campaign.)

The Comelec has since amended the resolution to include the declaration of campaign assemblies, polling places, precincts, etc., as “safe spaces” that do not allow misogyny, sexism, abuse, and discrimination according to gender, religion, age, mental or physical competence, etc. Although belated, it’s an idea whose time has finally come in these parts.

There are other clear prospects for the Comelec resolution’s coverage, including the governor of Misamis Oriental who is seeking reelection, the candidate for governor of Batangas, and the woman seeking a seat in the council of Manila, to whom Comelec Chair George Garcia earlier referred when he told reporters that spiels with “double meanings” are also not allowed.

As tedious as it is to recount, Gov. Peter Unabia touted his office’s scholarship program for nurses as exclusive to “beautiful women,” claiming that an ailing male patient would be further weakened by the ministrations of an ugly nurse. Per reports, he coupled that grim example of lookism with an equally astounding remark directed against Moros; it was accompanied by a visual presentation intended to paint his congressman-son’s election opponent, who is married to a Maranao, as a hazard to the security of the district. He has since apologized for his words (belatedly to nurses).

The candidate for governor of Batangas, one Jay Ilagan, pronounced his opponent, the actress, lawmaker and ex-governor Vilma Santos, as in so many words too old, too passé, to be of any risk to his run. And the wannabe councilor Mocha Uson’s double entendre campaign jingle offers herself as a commodity to be savored by a hungry public. 

Trademark invective

When did public discourse descend to the level of vulgar talk, and stay there? 

During his presidency, Rodrigo Duterte took his trademark invective of mothers-as-whores to Malacañang, lacing his official statements and speeches with it. The nervous laughter it initially elicited soon faded. The salty language—which has evolved into a family brand vigorously upheld by his offspring, as demonstrated in many recorded instances—and the accompanying coarse behavior generally disparaging of women were eventually “normalized.” 

Here is a particularly grating incident reported locally and globally at the time it occurred in February 2018: At a meeting with former rebels in the Palace, Duterte announced that he had ordered the military not to kill female insurgents but to just shoot them in their genitals. “If you shoot them in the vagina, it will be useless,” he said in Bisaya. 

Reacting to the outrage expressed by women’s and rights groups, Duterte’s then spokesman, Harry Roque, now a fugitive seeking asylum in the Netherlands where his ex-boss is awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity, was quoted as saying that “feminists are really a bit OA”—overacting—and that they should “just laugh” at the man’s “funny” remark.

Funny. A joke. Just for laughs. This is almost certainly how the candidates engaging in objectionable words and actions in the current campaign will formally explain their behavior. It behooves the Comelec to stand fast to its groundbreaking resolution and push it forward. So much to do, so little time. Who needs more jokesters in our languishing democratic project?

Read more: Words of rage and murder