Messages from the Jalosjos scandal
Messages from the Jalosjos scandal
Updated 01:12am (Mla time) Jan 07, 2005
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the January 7, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
DURING THE TRIAL of then-congressman Romeo Jalosjos for raping a girl (who was 11 years old at the time the crime was committed but 13 during the trial), the one thing I kept in mind was the image of my own daughter, who was about the same age as the victim. I couldn't bring myself to imagine her going through the ordeal that the girl recounted in detail to her lawyer and subsequently to the Inquirer. Just reading the transcript of the interview, I felt my insides tightening into a knot, nausea threatening.
At the time, one of the Jalosjos team's defenses was to insist that the congressman, who had paid for the girl's sexual services through her stepfather, did not know the girl's real age. He claimed to have thought she was 18 or so. His lawyers pointed out that the girl was, in the vernacular, "malaking bulas," or big-boned. But looking at the girl's pictures, and knowing she was 11 at the time of the rape, most everyone saw through the defense team's ruse.
Anyone who has ever had a daughter or who has beheld a preteen female, or who is or has been a preteen female, knows there's a huge difference in appearance between an 11-year-old and an 18-year-old. And as the girl herself testified, the congressman, while assessing her like a slab of raw meat, asked her pointblank if she already had her period. Now, why would he ask about her menstrual period if he was sure she was already of age?
But we're not arguing the former congressman's guilt or innocence here. He went through a much-publicized trial, had the means to hire the best possible defense team that money and influence could buy, and was convicted. That conviction was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court, after which the so-called worthies of the House of Representatives then and only then saw fit to declare him unfit to count among their ranks.
* * *
BUT they still wish to hold him in their embrace, apparently and if Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez is to be believed.
The Inquirer editorial is right on. Why is the justice secretary speaking and acting like the new lawyer of Jalosjos? And even if a sizeable number of legislators (publish their names, we want to know who they are!) have signed a petition for his release or parole or pardon on "humanitarian grounds," the principle of separation of powers dictates that the justice secretary defend the actions and decisions of his own department's prosecutorial team. Unless, as alter ego of the President, Gonzalez is really implementing the wishes of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
If that were true, then I can only say shame on her, for she knows full well the burden that violence against women and girls can inflict on its victims. Hadn't she spoken out in public herself about the sexual harassment of her daughter Luli, who was a young adult at the time? Will she have us believe that so heinous a crime as the rape of a child can be mitigated by political influence?
When the former congressman was finally convicted, women's and children's rights advocates rejoiced not only because one girl finally found justice, but also because, we thought at the time, his conviction sent many important messages to Philippine society.
For starters, the fate that befell Jalosjos underscored that it is a crime and a sin to have sex with a child, this even if one has paid for his or her "services" (or especially if one has paid for sex, which is bad enough), or if one has supposedly secured the child's "consent" (a concept that is dubious at best).
Secondly, we had hoped that Jalosjos' excursion to the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa would show men, but especially powerful, influential and wealthy men, that not all their money and political clout could shield them from the law.
* * *
WHAT message would Jalosjos' untimely release, even before he has served a quarter of his double life sentence, send to society now?
Several come to mind: That it's all right to force, coerce, inveigle or buy a child into having sex with you. In which case all our children are now at risk, for what makes you think pedophiles and just plain randy influentials would stop at child prostitutes or children of the poor?
For another, that, as respondents in a TV news survey assert, there is really a two-tiered justice system at work in our land: justice for the rich, and justice for the poor. And the rich, no matter the crime -- shooting the suspected mistress of your husband, shooting your battered wife in the abdomen, or raping a child -- can and do get away with murder or rape.
And finally, that the rich and the powerful will always stick by their own kind. While so quick and careless to condemn humble public servants or bureaucrats for the slightest infraction or slight, our members of Congress, for instance, choose to take their own sweet time repudiating a friend, especially if he or his family continues to wield power in his locality.
On New Year's Eve, our extended family played host once again to the young women and girls from the Nazareth and Bethany Growth Centers, both managed by Sister Sol Perpinan's Third World Movement against the Exploitation of Women, on their annual Christmas caroling drive.
Even if by now my siblings and their spouses know the girls are either former sex workers or are survivors of sexual and physical abuse, our talk after their departure centered once more on how astonishingly young and innocent they all looked. And we all involuntarily looked at our own daughters, saying a silent prayer of thanks.
Maybe that's what we should all do in the wake of this latest Jalosjos scandal. But we shouldn't stop at thanking God for sparing our daughters, or the girls we know. We should all be roused to anger and indignation and action, that his friends and sponsors would feel our wrath.
Updated 01:12am (Mla time) Jan 07, 2005
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A13 of the January 7, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
DURING THE TRIAL of then-congressman Romeo Jalosjos for raping a girl (who was 11 years old at the time the crime was committed but 13 during the trial), the one thing I kept in mind was the image of my own daughter, who was about the same age as the victim. I couldn't bring myself to imagine her going through the ordeal that the girl recounted in detail to her lawyer and subsequently to the Inquirer. Just reading the transcript of the interview, I felt my insides tightening into a knot, nausea threatening.
At the time, one of the Jalosjos team's defenses was to insist that the congressman, who had paid for the girl's sexual services through her stepfather, did not know the girl's real age. He claimed to have thought she was 18 or so. His lawyers pointed out that the girl was, in the vernacular, "malaking bulas," or big-boned. But looking at the girl's pictures, and knowing she was 11 at the time of the rape, most everyone saw through the defense team's ruse.
Anyone who has ever had a daughter or who has beheld a preteen female, or who is or has been a preteen female, knows there's a huge difference in appearance between an 11-year-old and an 18-year-old. And as the girl herself testified, the congressman, while assessing her like a slab of raw meat, asked her pointblank if she already had her period. Now, why would he ask about her menstrual period if he was sure she was already of age?
But we're not arguing the former congressman's guilt or innocence here. He went through a much-publicized trial, had the means to hire the best possible defense team that money and influence could buy, and was convicted. That conviction was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court, after which the so-called worthies of the House of Representatives then and only then saw fit to declare him unfit to count among their ranks.
* * *
BUT they still wish to hold him in their embrace, apparently and if Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez is to be believed.
The Inquirer editorial is right on. Why is the justice secretary speaking and acting like the new lawyer of Jalosjos? And even if a sizeable number of legislators (publish their names, we want to know who they are!) have signed a petition for his release or parole or pardon on "humanitarian grounds," the principle of separation of powers dictates that the justice secretary defend the actions and decisions of his own department's prosecutorial team. Unless, as alter ego of the President, Gonzalez is really implementing the wishes of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
If that were true, then I can only say shame on her, for she knows full well the burden that violence against women and girls can inflict on its victims. Hadn't she spoken out in public herself about the sexual harassment of her daughter Luli, who was a young adult at the time? Will she have us believe that so heinous a crime as the rape of a child can be mitigated by political influence?
When the former congressman was finally convicted, women's and children's rights advocates rejoiced not only because one girl finally found justice, but also because, we thought at the time, his conviction sent many important messages to Philippine society.
For starters, the fate that befell Jalosjos underscored that it is a crime and a sin to have sex with a child, this even if one has paid for his or her "services" (or especially if one has paid for sex, which is bad enough), or if one has supposedly secured the child's "consent" (a concept that is dubious at best).
Secondly, we had hoped that Jalosjos' excursion to the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa would show men, but especially powerful, influential and wealthy men, that not all their money and political clout could shield them from the law.
* * *
WHAT message would Jalosjos' untimely release, even before he has served a quarter of his double life sentence, send to society now?
Several come to mind: That it's all right to force, coerce, inveigle or buy a child into having sex with you. In which case all our children are now at risk, for what makes you think pedophiles and just plain randy influentials would stop at child prostitutes or children of the poor?
For another, that, as respondents in a TV news survey assert, there is really a two-tiered justice system at work in our land: justice for the rich, and justice for the poor. And the rich, no matter the crime -- shooting the suspected mistress of your husband, shooting your battered wife in the abdomen, or raping a child -- can and do get away with murder or rape.
And finally, that the rich and the powerful will always stick by their own kind. While so quick and careless to condemn humble public servants or bureaucrats for the slightest infraction or slight, our members of Congress, for instance, choose to take their own sweet time repudiating a friend, especially if he or his family continues to wield power in his locality.
On New Year's Eve, our extended family played host once again to the young women and girls from the Nazareth and Bethany Growth Centers, both managed by Sister Sol Perpinan's Third World Movement against the Exploitation of Women, on their annual Christmas caroling drive.
Even if by now my siblings and their spouses know the girls are either former sex workers or are survivors of sexual and physical abuse, our talk after their departure centered once more on how astonishingly young and innocent they all looked. And we all involuntarily looked at our own daughters, saying a silent prayer of thanks.
Maybe that's what we should all do in the wake of this latest Jalosjos scandal. But we shouldn't stop at thanking God for sparing our daughters, or the girls we know. We should all be roused to anger and indignation and action, that his friends and sponsors would feel our wrath.
posted by Dante at 4:40 PM
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