That kiss

President Duterte raised a firestorm of sorts among his usual critics when, during an event with Filipinos in South Korea, he asked for, and got, a kiss on the lips from a Filipino woman who freely gave it to him onstage.

Perhaps the president should not have asked for a kiss on the lips in the first place. Certainly it was unprecedented. But just because nobody has before him does not make it unpresidential. Other presidents have done far worse.

But the kiss is over and done with. More importantly, the woman, Bea Kim, who gave it to him, has already told the whole world she did not think there was any malice in what happened, which makes it mystifying why it is another woman, Risa Hontiveros, who is complaining.

Anybody less hypocritical and closed-minded who has seen the video of the incident will tell you it was the briefest of kisses, if it can even be called that. There was hardly any touching of the lips and it was over before Hontiveros can even smack her own lips.

In the video, the woman clearly did not resist. Instead, she slowly, perhaps timidly, moved herself into position for the kiss. But the most telling gesture of her acquiescence was her tightly embracing Duterte afterward.

Now I will never know why Hontiveros is scandalized by that. If the woman involved herself sees nothing wrong in the kiss she gave Duterte, whether it was on her lips or her elbow, who is Hontiveros to cry as if the house is on fire.

Hontiveros does not own the keys to the secrets of morality in this world even if she may think so. And if, in the course of her self-righteous but fallacious thinking, she thinks the world owes her a listen, then she better espouse causes that are real rather than imagined.

But I do not really blame Hontiveros for her illusions. For a woman I distinctly remember as having worn a flag-inspired dress as if to prove she was more nationalistic than others, it really didn’t come as a surprise that she would be offended by a kiss cherished by the one kissed.

At any rate, I am not trying to defend a tough guy who can ably defend himself and who has the resources of an entire government to do the same. It is just that there is too much hypocrisy in the world and if I can call out some then that makes me deserve a kiss of my own.

Also, it is getting to be the bad habit of certain politicians to pass off their biases as legitimate criticism. Frankly, Duterte or anyone else for that matter could use a little criticism from time to time. But seeing things where there are none is an unhealthy use of everybody’s time.