Being Mikey Arroyo
There are many reasons why Pampanga Representative and one-time movie actor Juan Miguel Arroyo has suddenly become the poster boy for the iniquities of the Arroyo administration. That he has failed to disclose his United States property in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth along with campaign contributions is not a particularly stunning revelation, at least not in a country where billion-peso corruption allegations are daily fare. It is not even the fact that a congressman who happens to be the President’s son has been caught with millions more than he makes through his monthly government paycheck. It may be easiest to say the current national disgust for him—as compared with the usual indifferent acceptance of his family’s various shenanigans—is largely due to his self-satisfied grin as he gleefully perjured himself on national television.
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The morality of Sen. Bong Revilla
Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. – Star of “Alyas Pogi” (1990) “Alyas Pogi 2” (1992) and “Alyas Pogi: The Return” (1999) – has a penchant for roles that demand bandanas, screaming half-naked females and paint-by-number tattoos. The boyish superman with the plastic M14 can take on a gang of mustached and bearded hoods – hoods, we assume, by virtue of the mustaches – all while heroically sucking in the gut under the tucked-in T-shirt. This is the man whose defining moment in his role as Leon in the 2000 film “Ang Kilabot at ang Kembot” has three women accusing him (accurately) of pretending loyalty to each of them, while all the while attempting to get a virgin into bed. And so the women stride in, big brothers in tow, all of whom launch themselves at the man with a hand on another woman’s behind. And then the action starts, elbow to gut, fist to face, a knee to the groin, the whining Casanova suddenly Zorro. The men fall bleeding at his feet, and so do the women, all four trying to squirm their half-naked selves into his arms while Leon rolls his eyes. Another day in the life of a real man.
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Bad Girls
You know the story, about the girl who goes for a night out, who is carried off, drunk and helpless, to be raped in a waiting van. You know what happens after, and where she is found: along a pier, disoriented, her pants down around her feet. You know where the story takes a different turn, because the girl, unlike the woman who is raped every hour in this country, goes to court and testifies that she was raped on the night of Nov. 1, 2005. This is what she said in a July 2006 hearing: “They took away my dignity … Smith raped me and his companions even encouraged him. They were enjoying it as if they were watching a private show. Then they just unloaded me [from the van] like a pig.” Court evidence established the lacerations and tenderness of her vagina as consistent with rape. Nicole testified in court that she was drunk and too weak to stop the assault. The trial court, in a decision that made international headlines, declared Lance Cpl. Daniel J. Smith guilty of raping the girl the nation knew as simply “Nicole.”
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