Women are not your punchline
Anne Curtis did not need defending because she is famous. She needed defending because she is a woman.
When Quezon City 4th District Rep. Bong Suntay made remarks about the actress during a House committee hearing—remarks many deemed sexist and objectifying—the public reaction was swift. He was urged to issue a public apology. Explanations followed. Clarifications were attempted. The usual choreography unfolded.
But this is not about celebrity culture. It is not about fandom. It is not about whether one finds a remark amusing or offensive.
It is about a reflex deeply embedded in our national psyche: the ease with which some men, especially those in power, speak of women as though we are adornments to a discussion rather than equal participants in it.
And it happened during Women’s Month. There is something painfully ironic about that.
In the Philippines, misogyny rarely announces itself with a snarl. It comes smiling. It comes wrapped in humor. It comes disguised as admiration.
“Ay, compliment naman ’yun.”
“Ang sensitive naman.”
“Imagination lang.”
“Depende kung bibigyan ng malice.”
We are a culture that prizes pakikisama, that avoids confrontation, that laughs to diffuse tension. We are taught—especially as women—to smooth the edges of discomfort, to keep the peace, to understand intention over impact.
But impact is where harm lives.
When a woman’s body or desirability becomes a metaphor in a formal government setting, the message is not subtle. It says that no matter how accomplished a woman is—no matter how disciplined, intelligent, or successful—her value can still be reduced to how she appears in someone else’s line of sight.
And if that can happen to someone as prominent and influential as Curtis, what more to the rest of us?
Misogyny in the Philippines is not confined to viral clips. It lives in jeepneys where hands wander and excuses follow. It thrives in offices where women are told to smile more, speak softer, dress differently. It echoes in family gatherings where a daughter’s marital status is discussed more urgently than her career.
We have normalized it to the point that when it surfaces in Congress, some people still ask: “Is this really worth the outrage?”
In a nation that prides itself on gender progress, why are women’s bodies still fair game in official discourse?
Yes. Because the venue matters.
A committee hearing is not a comedy bar. A lawmaker’s microphone is not a barkada group chat. Words spoken in those halls carry weight. They shape culture. They signal what is permissible.
When leaders speak casually about women as objects of imagination, they legitimize that language everywhere else.
Every March, we post purple graphics. We celebrate Filipinas who excel in science, in sports, in governance, in the arts. We invoke the names of our heroines. We praise modern trailblazers. We hold forums. We release statements.
And yet, in the same breath, we tell women not to be too reactive. Not to be too emotional. Not to be too demanding.
We want the optics of empowerment without the discomfort of accountability.
Women’s Month is not a bouquet handed out once a year. It is not a polite nod to “girl power.” It is a reminder that equality is unfinished business.
The Philippines often ranks high in gender parity indices. We are proud of that—and rightly so. We have had women presidents, women chief justices, women CEOs. But representation at the top does not automatically dissolve everyday sexism at the bottom. Patriarchy adapts. It modernizes. It learns to smile for the camera.
And sometimes, it laughs during a hearing.
What is striking in controversies like this is how quickly the burden shifts to the woman. Will she respond? Will she accept the apology? Will she take it as a joke? Will she rise above it?
Women are expected to be gracious even when disrespected. To be measured even when demeaned. To be calm when the very premise is that our bodies are public property for commentary.
We are tired of being the shock absorbers of male carelessness.
Accountability is not “cancel culture.” It is not hypersensitivity. It is the bare minimum in a democracy that claims to treat its citizens as equals.
Some will say there are bigger problems—poverty, inflation, corruption. And they are right. Those problems loom large.
But culture underpins policy.
If women are not taken seriously in speech, they will not be taken seriously in legislation. If women are reduced to physical attributes in discourse, their lived experiences—violence, unpaid care work, discrimination—become easier to trivialize.
Language is never neutral. It either affirms dignity or erodes it.
When public officials speak, they model behavior. Young boys are listening. Young girls are listening. The subtext matters.
An apology was issued. But apologies that defend the remark rather than examine it are merely cosmetic. To insist there was no malicious intent is not accountability; it is a way of doubling down while appearing contrite.
This lawmaker is also a father to daughters. That alone should remind us that the language we normalize in public life eventually becomes the world our daughters must navigate.
What we need is not just better wording but better consciousness. We need leaders who understand that respect is not seasonal. That women are not rhetorical devices. That imagination, when voiced carelessly, reveals more about the speaker than the subject.
Women’s Month should not be about proving we deserve respect. That debate is over. We do.
It should be about insisting that respect be practiced—in jeepneys, in boardrooms, in classrooms, in Congress.
Let’s stop pretending this is complicated.
Professional spaces are not stages for commentary on anyone’s body—not women’s, not men’s. A committee hearing is not a runway. A legislative floor is not a locker room. Governance is not flirtation.
But here is the difference we cannot ignore: When a public official speaks about a woman’s body in an official setting, it does not float in a vacuum. It lands in a society where women have long had to fight to be heard beyond how they look. It lands in a culture where credibility is still more fragile for women than for men. It lands in a history where power has rarely tilted in our favor.
So no, this is not about whether women also sometimes make remarks about men. It is about who holds the microphone, who holds institutional authority, and what centuries of imbalance do to seemingly “casual” words.
When those entrusted with public power redirect attention from competence to appearance, they reinforce an old hierarchy: that a woman’s body is always fair game, even in spaces meant for policy and principle.
And until that reflex disappears from our halls of power, equality will remain a slogan, not a reality.
