It’s sooooo annoying talaga,  these people! Grabe! (Or words to that effect)

It’s not me talking but Mr. Conrad De Quiros in yesterday’s Inquirer. In his almost apoplectic excoriation of the exponents of “Noynoying”, he takes everything and everyone to task, from Wikipedia to leftist youth groups to Manny Villar (?). Villar is as trapo as they come, but to connect him to the rising phenomena of Noynoying is stretching it a bit far.

Calling it puerile and a “horrendous contratemps”, De Quiros equates Noynoying as breaking faith with President Aquino’s “heroic” and “epic” efforts to fight corruption. He fears that that the spread of Noynoying would be playing into the hands of Gloria Arroyo’s propagandists and lead the young to perdition and the country to ruin.

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The case of alleged sexual harassment raised by Cristy Ramos against 2 members of the Philippine national football team, the widely (and wildly) popular Azkals, has brought the issue of sexual harassment into the forefront once more, this time in the area of team sports.

The details of the incident has been widely reported elsewhere, and need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that it has led to wide, and sometimes acrimonious, debate online and off among those who would condemn the perceived sexual “offenders” and those who would defend, or at least offer explanations for,  their actions.

First the disclaimer: The Ramos sisters were good friends and our neighbors at the subdivision where we grew up. The Ramoses are family friends, FVR and my dad having gone to college together. However, we drifted apart during our college years, having attended different schools, although I would bump into the recently-departed Jo once in awhile, she being a popular campus figure in U.P. Diliman.  I would also see Cristy’s husband, Freddy Jalasco, socially from time to time although I have not seen him in years.

There are two particular articles which I found most enlightening, all the more so for being from the point of view of women who are no strangers to the atmosphere and psychology of men’s team sports. One is by Lia Cruz (Sexual Harassment in mens’ locker room should be challenged) and the other by Mika Palileo (What is sexual harassment? On Sofia Cristina and the woman question), both at the AksyonTV website. Their insights are fascinating and cast light on one of the darker aspects of popular sports.

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Emphatically, as always. In taking to task the prosecution team in the C.J. Corona impeachment trial for their scattershot approach which led to the sudden and unceremonious withdrawal of 5 of the 8 articles of impeachment, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago let loose with a few choice and colorful words.  Just Miriam being Miriam, the other senator-judges seemed to say, until Atty. Vitaliano Aguirre signaled his displeasure by a contemptuous act which he defiantly stood by. An even bigger uproar ensued.

Which led to Fr. Catalino Arevalo, S.J., in a homily at the EDSA Shrine, to denounce Miriam “as worthy of the fires of hell” for having called the members of the prosecution panel “fools”. This according to the Bible. Never one to suffer fools gladly, Miriam was quick with a retort. The Constitution provides a wall of separation between Church and State, said she, and a priest cannot violate the law in the guise of criticizing a senator-judge with the ulterior motive of promoting his own (presumably anti-Corona) political agenda. Moreover, the Bible can be interpreted in an almost infinite number of ways. Even the devil can quote scripture to suit his ends, she might have added.

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