According to a Vera Files report, in the three years he served as vice governor, Mikey Arroyo should only have earned a gross annual income of P634,725. “Despite having declared no real property or business interests while still vice governor, even after his marriage to Angela, save for P2.1 million of unspecified shares of stock in 2001 and 2002 and about P3 million in bank deposits, he managed to acquire by 2004 a house in Lubao, Pampanga, worth P4 million and a house in La Vista in Quezon City for P8 million. He did not report having borrowed money or incurred other liabilities before he was elected congressman.”

On the sudden increase in his assets, Mikey said, “(It’s not) ill-gotten, hindi naman kalakihan ’yan (It’s not too big).” It is curious what the Arroyo son deems “big.”

In the controversial GMA7 interview, University of the Philippines Economics professor Solita Monsod interrogated the smiling congressman. He claimed his SALNs were self-explanatory—except by himself, apparently—and that he, any and all individuals who refused to accept his contradicting statements were in fact politically-motivated. It is the line the administration has long been taking, and one that is the period at the end of every failed justification for overspending, political crimes, corruption, and possible chest implants. The good congressman challenged Monsod to sue him in court if she was unsatisfied with his explanations. What was stunning about the Mikey interview was the fact that he had allowed himself to be interviewed, a departure from his mother’s patent refusal to answer media questions and to refuse all media interviews.

Mikey claims he appeared at the “Unang Hirit” interview because he had nothing to hide. As he obviously has very much to hide—although he seems stunningly inept at keeping them hidden—his live interview is a manifestation of the length and breadth of the administration’s impunity. A congressman can announce he is a moron on national television, confirm insinuations of corruption, act like a spoiled 12-year-old, and still get away with it because everyone knows Mommy is behind him.

“I have all the good intentions and it must have shown in my appearance, as many friends texted me or called me after the program saying it is the right and brave thing to do,” he said after he was asked about his television performance. Mikey needs new friends, that much is clear. He blames his “inability” to cope with the interview to Monsod’s questioning. “I respect her, and though her questioning had made me look bad or stupid, I guess very few people can actually really stand to questioning on live TV before millions of people especially early in the morning,” he said. He claims the interview may have given the “wrong perception” of him. Mikey was weighed and found wanting, trust him to say it was the fault of the weighing scale.

Weeks after the Vera Files exploded the issue of the Arroyos’ American holdings, and after media organizations followed their lead, very little has come of the contradicting explanations the brothers have offered. Mikey himself has done little but present platitudes. He challenges the public to sue him. He is glad for the case filed with the Ombudsman—and well he should be, as she is the same woman whose name was included in the original list of government officials that followed Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to gorge themselves on New York fine dining. Mikey claims the property in the United States is not in his family’s name—Vera Files says it is in his wife’s. He says he grew rich on wedding presents and campaign contributions, income that he did not declare.

In any other democracy, this would end in resignation and recrimination. In this country, it ends with a sound byte from a smiling congressman.

There is little doubt as to the guilt of one Doctor Hayden Kho, erstwhile lover of plastic surgery queen Dr. Vicki Belo – he of the red bandanna, gyrating hips, and unfathomable love for George Michael. He has admitted to filming a number of women without their consent during sex, and whether he was responsible for the distribution of those videos, the act of filming alone was enough to toss him behind bars.

What is perhaps stunning about the entire Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili scenario is the level of attention it is getting from the national government. The Senate claims an investigation in aid of legislation is vital to ensure that instances like this will not happen again. Senator Revilla, in a GMA7 interview, claims there is no existing law that will hold Kho responsible, with the exception of perhaps a case of child abuse (Revilla says he has unsubstantiated evidence that Kho did film a minor) or civil damages. It is this “toothless” legislation that Revilla wants to change with his playing knight in shining armor, forgetting perhaps that Kho can be held liable under the Violence Against Women and Children Act.

It is difficult to understand why the senators seem to feel the need to waste national funds on pitting Kho and Halili against each other. Kho does not deny his responsibility, Halili has done little but weep and rail, and while the cameras are trained on the tears rolling down her cheek, the Comelec chief approves of a much-questioned automation, a landslide slips completely off the front page, and the GDP dips lower than conservative estimates. When the story first exploded, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita urged all the women in Dr. Kho’s sex videos to press charges, saying that “anything that is offensive to public morals must be sanctioned,” on the same day brushing off a United Nations report on torture violations in the Philippines. Perhaps rape and strangulation are not offensive compared to a sex video. Allegations of Filipina rapes in Subic did not instigate privilege speeches by Bong Revilla. Charges of torture did not make Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez demand the blacklisting of now Partylist Representative Jovito Palparan.

And this is where morality again walks into the limelight and demurely crosses its legs. All of a sudden every man is a puritan, even the gentlemen of the Senate who “just happened” to view the sex videos. There is suddenly talk again about the evils of sex among the new generation, and a law, authored by Alyas Pogi himself, seeking to “safeguard the interest of the State against the menace” of “pornographic materials” that “disrupt the peace and order of the country.” Pornography, he calls it, anything that represents by whatever means a person (whether minor or an adult) “engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any other representation of the sexual parts of a person for primarily sexual purpose that is intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feeling.”

It is a law that has nothing to do with the Hayden Kho case, whose main issue is essentially a conceded lack of consent. Neither does this explain why Revilla and other senators insisted on keeping the investigation public, when aiding legislation could work whether or not senators have a venue to grandstand. And yet this national outrage can very well justify the passing of a law whose definition can give Manoling Morato a reason to kick out another “Schindler’s List.” And so it would mean a farewell to films from “Orapronobis” to “Scorpio Nights” to “Burlesque Queen” to Ai-Ai de las Alas’ “Tanging Ina Mo.” It would mean the possibility of canning “Star Trek” and “Kill Bill” and National Geographic features. It can knock out half the bookshelves of Fully Booked. Brillante Mendoza, recent Cannes best director, will find himself behind bars for producing last year’s critically acclaimed “Serbis.” I do not trust the gentlemen of the Senate to define what is aesthetic, what is emotional, and what is crude, as they do not recognize crudeness in themselves.

It is unnecessary to argue that it is the height of hypocrisy for such a man to propose such a bill, the only added value of this law would perhaps be the banning of Bong Revilla films from the shelves of Video City.

But there were many who took up the cudgels for Nicole. Her story became everyone’s story. Here is the Filipina raped and disowned by the vicious American. Here is the living, breathing image of the Filipino nation, raped by capitalist America. That Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith was a serviceman brought to the Philippines by virtue of the controversial Philippine-US Visiting Forces Agreement made the parallelism complete. “Nicole” is not a name but an issue, a concept, a word painted in red letters on a cardboard banner. This was the Nicole of the local media, this is the Nicole of the politicians and the human rights groups: Joan of Arc, banner flying, armor glinting, the light of battle in her eyes.

And then, recently, Nicole’s affidavit, what some have called a recantation. “My conscience continues to bother me,” she said, “realizing that I may have in fact been so friendly and intimate with Daniel Smith at the Neptune Club that he was led to believe that I was amenable to having sex or that we simply just got carried away,” she said. It was all that was necessary for the whispers to become shouts of righteous anger. We knew it, they said. We said she was a whore.

It was suddenly another Nicole who strutted into the Neptune Club on the night of Nov. 1, 2005. This was the girl who wore short skirts and pursued blue-eyed boys with their buzz cuts and pockets thick with US dollars, the girl with an ear cocked to the marching tune of the American Dream. This is Nicole, who sat on the laps of GIs and let them ply her with cocktails, first the Vodka Sprite, then the B52, the Singaporean Sling, the B53, the Long Island Iced Tea. That night, she sat on the lap of American Daniel Smith, a good-looking young serviceman she met on the dance floor. They say she kissed him, that she let him touch her on the dance floor, that they danced thrice, that she threw herself at him. This is the same Nicole that the defense team of Daniel Smith introduced to the Philippine public.

I have been told by many people who Nicole is, what Nicole is, whom she represents, what she should have stood for. I’ll tell you who I am, and why it does not matter to me who Nicole is. I am a 23-year-old girl who wears short skirts, who knows intimately the contents of a Long Island Iced Tea, and who has, on more than one occasion, discovered that a college degree is very little protection against stupidity. I do not walk into a bar expecting to be raped, and if my moronic belief in that men are not animals does get me raped, it does not make it any less a crime.

Nicole had it coming, they say. She was no virgin, she had an American boyfriend, she had drink after drink and was sprawled on Daniel Smith’s lap. There was tongue and lips and a hand up a skirt, she was in a dimly-lit bar in Olongapo City, the bright, bright city where women in tight cropped blouses and lipsticked smiles go to offer their charms to the brave boys of the US Army. Nicole wanted it, or she wouldn’t be there at all. How dare she, said the man who picked up the newspaper and saw her face. How dare she, said the activist who stood in front of the United States embassy. How dare she, said the college girl who shook her head at Nicole’s audacity. To cry rape, then to deny it, to cry rape, after inviting it — that was the betrayal.

Unlike murder or assault or kidnapping, a rape case puts a victim on trial. Her past is raked up, her virginity made an issue, her sexual history a matter for public scrutiny, as if having an engorged male organ rip into unwilling flesh is any less an assault than a gunshot to the chest. The media cannot reveal her name, because society will condemn her—as if she is a criminal, not a victim. To follow the argument that women should be held responsible for rape is to open the floodgates for all kinds of ridiculous analogies — similar to holding Ninoy Aquino responsible for his own assassination (he was warned after all) and to blaming Jonas Burgos for being outspoken. To say any woman invites rape means any male with a hard-on can say a girl batted her eyelashes, that stiletto heels are a come-on, and that a lack of self-control is justified by a kiss goodnight. It is to say some women should be raped, and some shouldn’t.

Even marriage — which is essentially also consent to marital relations — does not permit a man to take a woman whenever he wants her. I’ll tell you where I stand: that rape is still rape, whether or not the girl invites it, whether or not the woman is a Nursing graduate from Ateneo de Manila University or a paid escort in a halter top dancing for a clapping expatriate on the tables of Café Havana.

That Nicole was raped seems no longer the issue. The courts have determined that a man who has sex with a drunk, unconscious girl is a rapist just the same. The recent affidavit, written in a manner Nicole does not employ, notarized by the firm representing her assailant, paints a picture of a girl who won the battle but lost the brutal war: Smith was behind bars, but so was Nicole — without money, without a future, and with very little help from a government stretching its fingertips to reach the coattails of Uncle Sam. She folded, she quit, she did not hold the line. Signing that affidavit was neither brave nor heroic, but then again, unlike so many who have fallen, it was not Nicole who claimed to be a hero.