Hate and lies don’t stop in a time of a pandemic—we are after all under a government that lives off this kind of propaganda. But when it comes from regular people who deserve respect for fighting for the poor and oppressed, the farmers and the peasants and the workers, you can only be taken aback, to say the least. That they would even take the time to fashion you as enemy, throw shade in your direction, especially on social media comment threads where discrediting a person is quick and easy, here and now, well, there is a time of reckoning for that.

This is not that time, but it is the time for some clarification. So let me take precious energy to talk about the accusation that I “defended a rapist” last year. A controversial, sensationalist statement to make, a juicy piece of news to hear about the person who wrote a review of Ang Huling El Bimbo in 2018, and questioned its handling of the rape of the lead character Joy; the same person who likes to see herself as a feminist, who writes about being woman in this country, who builds upon the kawomenan of many others. But of course via people like artist and peasant advocate Donna Miranda, what will surface is nothing at all about what I’ve written, or the play in question. Instead it will be this statement from her: “Gusto ko man basahin ang review na yan nahihirapan ako bilang nagtanggol ng rapist yung manunulat a year after.”

What a way to take down a person: throw a one-liner, attack her, try to ruin her credibility. Who cares if it’s true?

Here’s my rule about comments-on-attack-mode on Facebook: ignore. You can see it from a mile away after all, those comments that have already decided how wrong you are, and therefore are really only engaging you on social media so they can take you down publicly. There is no listening that will happen here, no fleshing out of issues. We all have one of those in our (social media) life.

So what has changed now, why is this time being spent responding to this accusation that’s been thrown my way before, when there are better things to do?

Because I thought we had learned our lessons about the pitfalls of social media mob rule, given how terrible the outcomes can be. I thought we were all on the same page about social media responsibility and accountability, given as well government propaganda that employs online hate and vitriol to silence critics.

Now is also the time to do it because the conditions surrounding this accusation have changed, and in case it’s not clear it needs to be repeated here, and finally.

On August 5 2019 a social media post by a young female writer went viral; she accused the key speaker at a writing workshop in Iligan of “sexually taking advantage” of her, and called out the workshop organizers for failing to address her complaint properly. The social media response was quick, as we are wont to galvanize support for all victims since #MeToo, and rightfully so. While the accuser didn’t name the accused, an ally did. An important subplot to this narrative is that the accused later on sued for defamation that person who named him on Twitter.

The accused was swiftly taken down on social media. On August 6 there was a letter signed by writers, calling on the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) to do an independent investigation; it also called on the Ombudsman to investigate the workshop organizers. On August 12, writers’ and cultural organizations put out a statement calling for an “independent investigation” as well, and questioning the threat of a legal case against those “lending solidarity” to the victim. On August 21, with no case filed against him, the accused submitted himself for any investigation to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

On November 26 2019, news was released about the accuser filing her complaint of rape and sexual harassment against the accused. On February 26 2020, news was released that the case had been dismissed. In the decision, the Office of the City Prosecutor of Iligan City concluded that the “complaint of rape must fail” because it lacked “the element of force, threat or intimidation” against the complainant. The sexual harassment case was also “rendered nil” because these “acts complained of does not constitute sexual harassment since the respondent did not demand, request nor require any sexual favor from the complainant.” The decision of Associate City Prosecutor Shirly R. Parmisana-Bisnar is online for anyone who wants to discuss this further.

What do I have to do with this issue? At the height of the social media clamor for accountability, I wrote this essay where I question the use of social media as a space for meting out justice, where what rules are the loudest voices, the collective mob. I said that even as I believe the accuser, as I do all victims given their recounting of their experiences, the only way for justice to be served is if we bring the case to the courts, allow the narrative itself its due process, and refuse to be accuser, jury, judge on social media.

It was then, I think, that I was first accused of being an enabler, a defender, of a rapist. Threads on Facebook filled with the same names of people, Miranda’s included, on attack-mode. I am told this was their way of engaging me in public about my opinions. But talking down to people, calling them names, is not the way to start any productive discussion.

So why this clarification at this point in time? Because I’ve stayed quiet long enough. Because even as I know this won’t stop Miranda and her ilk from throwing this in my face whenever it’s convenient, sitting down to write this now will save me the energy of having to explain myself again and again, as it is also a way to put into words my disgust and dismay.

Why am I disgusted. Because it’s a lie. Not once did I say the accused was not guilty, not once did I say the accused did nothing wrong. Appealing to sobriety and hunos dili, fleshing things out and analyzing what we’re doing at any given point, refusing to be part of mob rule and kuyog, not putting my signature on a statement, questioning how things are being handled on social media—those do not defend the accused as much as it insists on due process. This shouldn’t be a surprise: is this not what we’ve demanded of this government the past four years, given how it presumes that pointing a finger and fashioning an accusation, is enough to call someone a criminal? What kind of justice system is that where an accusation is already held as truth, a complaint is already judgment?

Yes, we take into consideration notions of power—the #MeToo movement, after all, was about the take down of powerful men who for years had been getting away with abuse and violence against less powerful women. But in this particular case, the accused was hardly a powerful literary figure: he held no editorial position, has no books or prizes to his name. Sure, he was key speaker at that workshop, but our generation of writers are getting the speaking engagements at this point; that doesn’t mean we hold the same power as the elders or capitalists of the literary establishment. The accused is also middle class and was in-between jobs, and one would be hard put to prove that he was influential enough to sway any court’s decision in his favor. The accused is far from being powerful, or influential, and he is hardly known. It seems that a sense of proportion, nine months in, and given the court’s decision, is crucial if we are to move forward.

We could of course just hold a grudge, which is easy. I understand that the laws are built against the woman. The odds are stacked against us: it is difficult to file a case, and even more difficult to win one. But when did that ever mean we do not use the court altogether? The progressive movement itself files cases before the courts, while holding rallies to pressure it to decide in its favor. It is from this history of going through due process that we’ve seen many successes in terms of policies and laws that actually serve the people.  The difficulty of filing a case and winning it, has never meant we will not try. Because in the end and ultimately, this is the choice we have to make.

Unless of course one thinks that justice is about ruining a person’s reputation, ending the public life of the accused, never mind due process, never mind innocent-until-proven-guilty? And if yes is the answer to that, as it has to be if we insist on social media mob rule as justice, then what makes us different from Duterte and his propagandists who spew lies, who red tag, whose accusations are taken as truth, transforming suspects into criminals, and often enough getting them killed?

Which brings me to why I am dismayed.

I am dismayed that the people who are supposed to know better, who call out government abuse, who question the State and its propaganda against the progressive movement, who raise a fist against the hate and vitriol, the red tagging on social media and beyond, it dismays me that they would be so thoughtless and careless as to spew these same kinds of accusations.

It dismays me that what this looks like, what this feels like, is an attack on my person. An attempt to erase what it is I actually stand for, what I’ve done all these years, where I am in the political spectrum, what it is I continue to do as writer, cultural worker, citizen of nation, and ally of the progressive movement, because “A-ha! Here’s something we can hit her with, here’s a mistake that will ruin her, here’s her Achilles heel!” One need not agree with me all the time, and certainly I have my weaknesses. But do I deserve this kind of attack on any random day, because people are sharing something I wrote in 2018?

It dismays me that Miranda likes to flex in this way. Because we are at a point when it is clear who the enemies are, and who are not. And when activists like her engage on social media in exactly the same way that Duterte propagandists do, it blurs that line between right and wrong. One cannot help but be dismayed. Because fashioning enemies, and oh so publicly, at a time when the real enemies are clear? To be so small-minded as to hold a grudge, to insist on tagging a writer as criminal (never mind the court’s decision), to deny the possibility of redemption or recovery? To have no sense of proportion? When you are an activist and your reflex is to call people names, tag them negatively and conclusively, to try and ruin whatever credibility they might have? To treat people like “enemies,” who deserve the same angry energy, the same raised fist, that you carry against fascists and dictators, abusive landlords and bureaucrat capitalists, never mind that all they did was disagree with you?

I’d like to think that this progressive movement that I respect, this one that cradles and holds the loyalty of many of the minds and people and friends I respect, I’d like to think that this movement does not encourage the kind of discursive exercise that Miranda practices on social media. I’d like to think the bigger movement can see that while I am not a member of any of its organizations, and I am no follower of all that it believes or proposes, that in the final analysis, I am no enemy. I am a writer who has, for over a decade, done my own thing, saying my piece on issues, fleshing things out the way I know how, regardless of whether there is an audience for it or not. Much of what I think, and write about, is borne of what I continue to learn from the movement Miranda is part of; I might be acting on it differently from her, but I’d like to hazard a guess that enough people within that same movement appreciate the critical distance I keep, and respect it.

And it is because of those people that I am letting this go, and talking about this for the first and last time. Because there is no point in belaboring the points I make here, and no point in engaging in a battle I have no interest in.

A friend who knows I’m writing this asked me: you know you’ll get into a fight right? Yes, yes I do. The thing is, I think I’ve been in this fight since I dared disagree with Miranda and her friends, even as I have refused to engage or make patol. After this essay, I’m stepping out of this battle altogether. No raised fist, nor raised voice; no anger, nor grudge. It is what it is: a response to an accusation, a clarification about its context, a fleshing out of what has already disappeared from our Facebook timelines, and not much else. Because there are bigger wars to fight, and win, and I’d like to think that at this point, the more magnanimous among us agree that our unities are far more important than our disagreements. ***