Clinton daughter slams Rody over rape joke

MANILA, Philippines - A “murderous thug” is what former US presidential daughter Chelsea Clinton called President Duterte on social media after the latter uttered yet another rape joke while addressing soldiers in Iligan City on Friday.

“Not funny. Ever,” former US president Bill Clinton and defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s daughter tweeted.

The young Clinton was responding to a Twitter post of New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker, who quoted Duterte as joking that soldiers in areas under martial law can commit up to three instances of rape.

“Duterte is a murderous thug with no regard for human rights. It’s important to keep pointing that out and that rape is never a joke,” she added in response to another tweet on the matter.

Duterte went to Iligan City the other day and assured troops involved in implementing martial law in Mindanao that he would take responsibility for the consequences of the declaration of martial law.

“Trabaho lang kayo. Ako na bahala. Ako na magpakulong sa inyo. Kapag naka-rape ka ng tatlo, aminin ko na akin ‘yun (Just do your job. I’ll take care of the rest. I’ll be the one to go to jail. If you rape up to three, I’ll take responsibility),” he said.

The statement was met with criticisms from women’s groups, including Gabriela, who reminded him of the seriousness of the issue of rape. 

“Rape is not a joke. Martial law and the heightened vulnerability to military abuse that it brings to women and children are not a joke either,” the group said.

“President Duterte must be reminded that a rape joke made even as women and children’s lives are in great danger and when liberties and basic rights are being attacked is the height of insensitivity,” it added.

During the campaign last year, then-Davao City mayor Duterte came under fire after he uttered a rape joke in one of his campaign speeches.

While her tweet standing up against Duterte was received positively by her followers, a number of Duterte supporters called her out for her statement.

One said that she failed to understand the full context of the President’s statement, while several tweets resorted to citing the infamous affair of her father while he was in the White House.

“Shut up if u don’t have any good thing to say. You’re not a Filipino. Mind your own business,” one user tweeted.

Clinton’s mother Hillary, a former US secretary of state, lost to Donald Trump in last year’s presidential race. Trump, who appeared to have established a positive relationship with Duterte, had been on the receiving end of criticisms from women’s groups over his supposed misogynist remarks.

No laughing matter

Another association of women’s rights defenders was also enraged over Duterte’s latest “rape joke.”

“Rape is a heinous crime, never a laughing matter. Rape by state security forces is even worse. It is a tool of the state to inflict violence, to humiliate and to subjugate women into silence and submission. It is a tool of the state to terrorize women, our children and families, our communities. It is a tool of war against women human rights defenders who fight back against state repression, poverty, injustice and intervention. It has been in counter-insurgency manuals of the US and Philippine military, written or implied,” Tanggol Bayi stressed.

The group’s coordinator Gerifel Cerillo said that countless incidents of rape by military, paramilitary and police officers have been documented before, during and after Marcos’ martial law, and that at least 12 rape cases by military personnel under the Aquino administration were documented by rights group Karapatan.

“Most perpetrators, if not all, have not been prosecuted, much less punished for these acts that violate human dignity, despite laws criminalizing rape, the Magna Carta of Women and international instruments protecting women’s rights,” Cerillo said.

While many women are brave enough to tell their stories despite the wave of social biases, sexism, stigma and discrimination, many more are discouraged by the existing impunity, she added.

“President Duterte, in his most recent rape joke, is preaching to a monstrous choir. He encouraged a known fascist institution, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), to do exactly what it has been doing. Women, especially the poor who have been at the receiving end of such violence, are not laughing,” Cerillo said.

“While we continue to stand against groups that inflict terror on the people of Marawi, we stand against any form of human rights violations by the State, especially by its instruments of war against the people emboldened by Duterte’s martial law declaration in Mindanao,” the group also said.

Inappropriate, tasteless

Meanwhile, two senators denounced Duterte’s latest rape joke as not only inappropriate, but also tasteless.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros emphasized that rape is not a joke and should never be the subject of any joke by anyone.

“Rape is a crime. Rape is a violation of the Bill of Rights, which is not suspended by martial law,” she said. 

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, on the other hand, said that the President was in effect damaging the professionalism of the AFP by subjecting its members to his shenanigans. – Janvic Mateo, Rhodina Villanueva, Marvin Sy