HYPOCRACY

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Finally, as anticipated, the noises of righteous indignation coming from assorted personalities posing as moral guardians of the country has driven U.S. Ambassador Thomas to offer an apology of sorts for a statement he made sometime recently that 40% of male tourists coming to the Philippines do so for sex.  He admitted, as also expected, that he did not have the concrete data to support his assertion. It is not clear whether this lack of concrete data refers to the fact that many male visitors include sex in their tour, or only to the percentage of those who do, but we will not read any naughtiness in the Ambassador's apology by pursuing this point.   Anyway, the apology appears satisfactory to our moral guardians who seem to have now calmed down and may not pursue anymore their threat to have Ambassador Thomas declared persona non grata.

Hopefully, the whole incident is now over with a lesson left for Ambassador Thomas to be not so reckless in what he says in the future about the Philippines, even if majority of Filipinos may agree with him.  However, to me and some others, what we would like to be clear about is: What have they - the legislators led by Sen. Lacson, the bishops and sundry moral guardians, to include some in the media who loudly weighed in on this incident - accomplished?  Do they honestly believe that they have safeguarded the country from an unwarranted slur that commercial sex abound among its impoverished inhabitants?  Do they feel that they have vindicated the standing of the Philippines as the predominantly Catholic nation in Asia?

I am almost sure that they cannot honestly answer yes to those questions and I would offer the suggestion that they be more circumspect and intellectually honest next time; not to righteously jump in on unavoidable aspects of tourism spin-offs that are non-issues in most tourist destinations all over the world.  Knee-jerk reactions for the sake of publicity and media mileage very often, if not always, reveal the masquerading crusader as shallow and a hypocrite.

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