NOYNOY’S REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, PRODUCTIVE LOTHARIO?

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!

Noynoy Aquino of the Liberal Party, the country’s emerging conservative-to-fascist pro-global elite political formation, had delivered his piece about reproductive health. I wonder how deep is the senator’s knowledge about the issue, given the fact that his academic prowess and empathy are mediocre. He never had graduate schooling, did he? And does he not suffer from low emotional intelligence, being ill-tempered as his former classmates describe him?

Whenever Noynoy talks about the issue, one wonders whether he is unconsciously speaking from where he is situated women-wise. His verbiage reveals how he perceives and treats women, in other words. He does project a reduction of reproductive health to being healthy enough to procreate with women, with the subtle message that, for bachelors and single women, be careful enough to avoid unwanted pregnancy no matter how much you consummate sex.

The public knows for a fact that the father of Noynoy—the late Ninoy Aquino—was a lothario. Given the fact that Noynoy hasn’t married yet, and he isn’t getting any younger, observers are behooved to think that this senator regards women as mere toys who should be circulated among men, more so the men he knows.

It just doesn’t sound nice to talk about the private life of politicians, but since the issue of reproductive health and women’s issues are among the raging public issues, we cannot avoid scrutinizing the way political candidates have manifested their relationships with the opposite set.

I just wish that women’s groups would do their job to administer a ‘gender relations audit’ on the top political candidates to check out whether each one of them makes to the grade of normal, gender empowering kind of persons. A person like Noynoy, who suffers from psychiatric maladies as per reports filtering out as internal information, is hardly any man who would fit into a normal gender-empowering partner.

Let’s take that narrative about Charlotte Datiles, a graduate of Miriam College (she was my former student in ’84 when I taught in Miriam). Datiles was having an amorous relationship with Noynoy when she tragically died during a coup attack by the RAM-YOU in the late 80s. Just what sort relationship was that one, women should ask? What was the circumstance that led to that tragic event? Wasn’t Charlotte one of those being circulated among men (bless her departed soul)?

Now, how about Korina Sanchez, whose nuptials with Mar Roxas finally ensued (thanks God!)? Didn’t Korina got involved in an erotic bond with Noynoy Aquino for some time? And after Noynoy, didn’t Korina get involved with another Aquino, a brother of Butz, for eight (8) years or so? After that affair (to remember? to forget?), Ms. Sanchez finally landed in the hands of the Don Quijote d’ Cubao estate, Mar Roxas?

If you’d complete the jigsaw that comprises Noynoy’s women, notably their circulation among men, one would think that they are akin to the indigenous women of Brazil that were studied by the late social anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. Prof. Levi-Strauss theorized that the “circulation of women” explained the complex kinship and marriage structures among his subjects.

Quite revealingly, Noynoy and the men that he represents seem to have more in common with ‘primitive’ men of Brazil than with the post-modern, urban men of the present. And yet here is Mr. Aquno exuding the image of a contemporary man, isn’t he?

For an unsolicited advice, the women’s groups led by Gabriela should better investigate the ‘gender relational performance’ of Noynoy. And investigate now, before it would be too late. That test should be done in addition to administering Noynoy the ‘Adorno scale’ to test his level of ‘authoritarian personality’ (scale of fascistic behavior).

If Noynoy is manifesting pro-choice and pro-population control standpoints, and he is not passing in psychiatric health and shows fascistic (authoritarian) tendencies, then his behaviors dovetail on the manner of his handling of women.

Noynoy is nobody’s Mr. Clean woman-wise, he is no Mr. Clean for that matter even as he is no spiritual seeker who had quite ascended in the Path. As I articulated in a previous article, his moralistic inquisitionism is a manifestation of fascistic tendencies, akin to the fascistic tendencies of the ancient Knights’ Templars and Teutonic Knights (Nazis’ exemplars for their hubris, sadism, arrogance).

I wonder what the pro-Noynoy women’s groups (are there any true feminists there?) will counter if the mass media will pick up the questions raised, do investigative journalism, and expose the true nature of Noynoy in his handling of women. For now, they are lucky that no howl has been raised yet about the matter by Noynoy’s political adversaries.

[Philippines, 25 April 2010…………………….. See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, UNLADTAU: https://unladtau.wordpress.com, COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com, BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com, ARTBLOG: http://erleargonza.wordpress.com]

RELIGION AS LEGITIMATION OF GREED

Erle Frayne Argonza

Is religion a truly reformed institution as what its leaders have been claiming? After Vatican II and all those post-Vatican II doctrines that were elicited from this grand reform movement, has the Catholic Church been truly reformed?

Writing to his friend Dr. Blumentritt in 1890, Jose Rizal, top patriot of the nationalist movement, explicated:

I wished to hit the friars but as the friars utilize religion not only as a shield but also as a weapon, a protection, castle, fortress, cuirass, etc., I was forced to attack their false and superstitious religion, to fight the enemy that hid behind it! If the Trojans had placed a grand Pallas Athena over their fortress and from there had fought against the Greeks with their arrows and their arms, I believe that the Greeks would have also attacked Pallas Athena. God ought not be utilized as a shield and protector of abuses, and less to use religion for such purpose. If the friars really have more respect for their religion, they would not use so often its sacred name and would not expose it to the dangerous situations. What is happening in the Philippines is horrible. They abuse the name of religion for a few pesos. They hawk religion to enrich their treasuries. Religion to seduce the innocent young woman! Religion to get rid of an enemy! Religion to perturb the peace of marriage and the family, if not to dishonor the wife! Why should I not combat this religion with all my strength when it is the primary cause of all our sufferings and tears? The responsibility falls on those who abuse the name of religion! Christ did the same to the religion of his country, to the Pharisees who had abused so much! [Letter to Blumentritt, Paris 20 January 1890. Epistolario Rizalino, V, Part II, No. 85, p. 528.]

Tell me, anyone out there, fellows of the Planet, a clear 118 years after Rizal exposed those abuses of the clergy, whether religion had been truly reformed since then. Articulate to me those liberative pursuits of the churches that have indeed resulted to many souls attaining the awakening of the nirvanic bodies or souls that finally qualify them to enter the spiritual dimensions and never to come back here.

Do make your own assessments and evaluations of the true efficacy of church philosophies and practices, whether they indeed succeed or that they are mere legitimations for the greed and lust for power of a few men in the cassocks.

And by Church here, we no longer refer just to some local churches here in Manila, but rather the whole Church with a capital C as s social institution. Globalization has brought with it the globalization of crimes, and necessarily the globalization of greed. Amen. Aum.

[Writ 13 June 2008, Quezon City, Manila]