Hipon

The recent attention given to Ramon Bautista's Hipon joke has made it not only to the Facebook feed but also to my wide awake and irate conciousness- probably more than it should be. Many of those, especially the Davaoenos, have voiced support over the initial reprimand of the Davao mayor, which at the time already came with a "monitored coercion" of Ramon's public apology on that same stage, on that very night it happened. First, Ramon already apologized. Second, he calls himself pogi which implies, and anyone with a decent logic can say his humour is self deprecating, that hey the joke was meant to be taken with the same self deprecating humour. Which leads us to the question did he really intend to insult the same women, mothers, and daughters (using the same analogy) who came to be his audience? Doesn't make sense, does it? The only thing that makes sense is that this politician saw an opportunity to bully and as a show of force, with a self proclamation that she was protecting the rights of her people, when no one else was complaining. And am guessing no one else took the joke with such shortsightedness than her. They keep on waving a local ordinance against discrimination,without remembering to ask themselves was that truly an act of discrimination? So I'm left to cringe in iritation while hopelessly realizing how we,as a people can be too gullible and at the same time too sensitive, in too blown out proportions, across too many different bizzare ways. How even in the first place can a guy of the same race, and color , physically discriminate his own? Regionalism and small mindedness are two of the issues here that,'s just too sad and I'm afraid our collective sense of humour will be forever stuck in our fondness of slapstick and gay bar comedy, which ironically, employs far worse attacks against human appearance and folly as the main setup or source for a laugh.