Throwing the first stone

By Elson Elizaga

EVEN if most of us do not speak German, we can get the meaning of the following paragraph. Read the first five words, and the last seven. They are part of a report in Der Speigel in January 2018:

“Der philippinische Präsident Rodrigo Duterte ist für derbe Äußerungen bekannt. Nach einer erneuten Entgleisung schlägt ihm nun heftige Empörung entgegen: Duterte hatte in einer Rede zum Jahresende beschrieben, wie er als Teenager ein Dienstmädchen massiv sexuell belästigt habe.”

 For other readers, the report says the president admitted that he had sexually molested a teenage girl. But Congress has no comment about this alleged incident. Nobody asks if it is true, or just a joke, in fairness to Duterte. Instead, four members made fun of Sen. Leila de Lima’s relationship with her driver.

In social media, a strange phenomenon sometimes happens. When a person criticizes the President, some readers react by quoting part of the Gospel of John 8:7: “Let anyone of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

This practice usually stops any Christian, especially those who accept the Bible as holy and completely without error, unaware that the passage is absent in the oldest manuscript. Biblical scholars consider John 7:53–8:11 a debatable insertion in later copies. (https://tinyurl.com/yb3n87jx)

 The other oddity is, while the passage refers to Jesus’ forgiveness of an alleged adulterous woman, some DDS Christians do not use the story to defend de Lima, in spite of her gender and the misogynistic attacks against her. Instead, they participate in slut-shaming and consider her imprisonment as proof that she is guilty of the charges. 

But they accept John 8:7 as a valid defense for the shortcomings of the male President who, during one of his speeches, had encouraged soldiers to shoot the vaginas of female rebels. They do not use the text to shield Vice President Leni Robredo, despite the surprising fulfillment of her prophecy: “The last man standing is a woman.”

And then, of course, a lot of people follow Mocha Uson’s Facebook posts.

So, there exists a selective, political application of John 8:7. And it seems to indicate that the flock is somewhat confused and scattered, even without the assistance of the Appointed Son of God. The Reverend Manny Pacquaio should invite the distinguished biblical scholars Bart Ehrman and Reza Aslan to give lectures in the Philippine Arena in January, to help Christians acquire what Ehrman calls “informed faith.” January is National Bible Month in the Philippines, but the number of events associated with it, since its declaration in 2017, has been, most curiously, zero. There are no parades, parties, and beauty pageants during the celebration of the National Bible Month. There is no public burning of heretics.

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A report from the Philippine Daily Inquirer in December says, “Inquirer columnist Solita Monsod, a former socioeconomic planning secretary, drew the ire of Duterte for a recent column in which she congratulated his administration’s poverty reduction efforts.”

Duterte told Monsod via spokesperson Salvador Panelo: “F*** you.”

What was the cause of Duterte’s strong reaction?

Possibly this portion of Monsod’s Dec. 14 column: “The region which showed the largest percentage point decrease in poverty was Region X, Northern Mindanao, which includes Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro. Its family poverty incidence decreased from 32 percent in 2015 to 17.2 percent. In President Duterte’s region (XI), the decrease was only 4.3 percentage points. That is a pleasant surprise, in the sense that a president’s region is usually the most favored. But maybe the President is more interested in accommodating his business friends than the poor in his area. Maybe.”

The president’s anger is understandable. Monsod’s economic analysis was incomplete. She should have mentioned the OFW remittances, too, and congratulate the workers as well.

According to the manilatimes.net, money sent by OFWs in 2018 reached “$32.21 billion, up 3.0 percent from 2017’s $31.29 billion.” The same site wrote that in December 2018, “The countries that contributed most to the increase during the month were the United States and Canada.” (https://tinyurl.com/scub4xp)

If these countries and the European Union will ban some OFWs because they promote EJK and attack Sen. de Lima, we might see a slight decline of the surging economy of the Philippines, as OFWs migrate to North Korea, and help improve the standard of living in that god-forsaken kingdom.

(Elson T. Elizaga is a lightwriter and baby-sitter. He comes from his mother and got married on a hill. He seeks tension in language and images. When struck by lightning, he prays. Otherwise, he is a secular humanist who writes for elson.elizaga.net.)