We aren’t a social currency

MANILA, Philippines - He is a middle-aged man who just reached home after a long day at work. He greets his wife and kids and settles down in his bedroom, opening his laptop. He cautiously looks about, making sure that no one is nearby, before opening the secret Facebook group. He smiles. There are new photos posted, as there always are every day. His interest is particularly piqued by one photo, that of a 13-year-old girl in a high school uniform. He closes his eyes and begins to imagine...

In an internet shop downtown, a group of college boys are huddled around a single PC displaying the photo of one of their female classmates in a bikini, which one of them just posted in the secret Facebook group. They begin to joke about taking turns with her, arguing as to who would go first. Meanwhile, the photo begins to gain attention, with group members commenting, “Sarap,” “Akin iyan” and the most frequent comment of all: “Amen.”

Amen – as if in lewd worship of the female bodies displayed in the photos, no matter how indecent or innocent. This is the new type of religion that has arisen in the Philippines in the form of “Pastor Hokage” Facebook groups.

The scenarios above, while fictional, are based on reality as Filipino citizens everyday sexually abuse and exploit the bodies of women and children for their personal enjoyment.

The members of such groups call themselves pastors, serving to preach and spread not the word of God, but sexual immorality. Members regularly pay tithes – or what they call “ambag” – by posting photos of women and children, using these photos as some form of twisted sexual currency. Photos range from hard-core pornography to “sexy” poses to innocent pictures. The virtual gathering of pastors over a photo is then called a “bible study.”

This is an example of a culture that persists deeply in Philippine society: the culture of a patriarchal society that delights in exercising misogyny. It starts in closed doors of elementary schoolrooms with boys sharing nude photos, to “locker room” talks in high school, to men in college and beyond who brag about their sexual conquests during inuman sessions.

What’s scary is that the emergence of the internet allows for this kind of behavior to go one step further. Now, this kind of sexual perversion is no longer kept a secret. It is out in the most public platform of social media there is: Facebook. While pornography has existed for a long time, the danger with these “Pastor Hokage” groups is that it tends to normalize the misogynistic behavior of its members as it becomes part of their routine, everyday lives. More than that, they build communities around this kind of depravity, with members rendering support to each other.

The ease with which Facebook allows communities to form has spawned a number of “Pastor Hokage” groups with members reaching up to thousands. There is no individual leader, no single bad guy to take down, but a multitude of perverts. Once one group is closed, another can easily be created using different code names.

What can be done for now is to be vigilant in reporting about the activities of such groups; to disperse the crowd before they are able to form a strong union; and push for the approval of stronger legal measures for the punishment of  these perverted pastors.