The Philippine Daily Inquirer – a newspaper that takes pride in “Balanced News, Fearless Views” – recently suspended its long-running comic strip Pugad Baboy over this three-panel gag:
Why put Pugad Baboy on hiatus over this? The offending strip opens with a brief examination of religious hypocrisy: though conservative-leaning Christians and Catholics frown upon gays and lesbians, Catholic girls-exclusive schools (those run by nuns, no less) tend to condone lesbian students. The punchline comes when Tiny, part of the strip’s main cast, concurs, pointing out that most, if not all, pretty students at the Catholic St. Scholastica’s College, have girlfriends. In 63 words, cartoonist Pol Medina, Jr. cracked a joke about common religious behaviors, as well as poked fun at a stereotype alleged to a popular all-girls’ school.
The question still stands, however; why was Pugad Baboy suspended?
Why was a comic known for 25 years of poignant yet sharp satire of the Filipino experience cancelled over this particular strip, when it would routinely compare the country’s peacekeeping force to bribe-hungry crocodiles; its politicians to philandering, self-serving nincompoops; its household help to uneducated, uncultured clowns; and its gays to obnoxiously flamboyant screamers? When it parodied former president Joseph Estrada as the matinee-worthy hero Kraymbuster, who always seemed to arrive and take credit after the day was saved by someone else? When its very name calls overweight Filipinos pigs?
Who, or what, was offended so much that administration deemed it necessary to fire one of the Philippines’ most celebrated artists?
St. Scholastica’s?
A lot of criticism is pointed at Medina’s mention of St. Scho; if he hadn’t singled them out, the strip wouldn’t have been so offensive. The publication of a false stereotype on one of the country’s most-read dailies is damaging to the school’s reputation, it’s been said; enough to inspire its own hashtag on Twitter, even.
But what school hasn’t had its share of public stereotypes? As a graduate of La Salle Greenhills, I’ve heard my school being called “full of conyos”, “mayabang”, “gay factory”, and more. We have schools of sluts, of thugs, of rejects from more highly regarded universities. These labels are always misrepresentative of the school’s culture as a whole, and everybody knows that – that’s why we joke about it. It’s when we take these stereotypes too seriously that things get offensive. Even though there’s a modicum of truth behind the labels, it’s generally something we laugh off.
Have we forgotten Medina’s earlier representations of Mao, the Pugad Baboy community’s resident Chinese businessman? He is the personification of the awful “Intsik” stereotype from our country's younger, less enlightened days: shrewd, money-grubbing, and opportunistic.
If the publication let jokes made on the much larger Filipino-Chinese community’s behalf slide for years, why should it suddenly act on a joke about St. Scholastica? Because the strip implied widely prevalent lesbianism among the students? That suggests that those offended find lesbianism wrong. That’s an entirely different issue. When one of the main issues is nuns being accused of “allowing lesbian relationships,” what are we to assume?
“Religious Feelings”?
It’s hard to think about this issue without looking back to two recent events in which religion clashed with art: Mideo Cruz’s Kulo and Carlos Celdran’s Damaso protest. The core of the strip, ignoring the school’s name, points out the Filipino’s tendency to have religious hypocrisies – particularly when leaning towards the conservative end. Homosexuality just happens to be one of our fuzzier gray areas in terms of cultural acceptance.
To this day, many Filipinos use bakla or bading as insults that imply ineffectiveness and a lack of fortitude, and yet our mass media celebrated Rustom Padilla’s strength of character when she decided to debut as the transgendered BB Gandanghari. Our men cringe at the thought of men kissing each other – someone I know, in fact, once threatened to beat up his younger brother if the latter came out as gay – but we find Vice Ganda’s flamboyance to be one of the epitomes of entertainment. And yes, our Catholic schools condone, even protect, homosexual students, even though an overwhelming majority of recent senatorial candidates (many of whom were likely educated in said Catholic school) are against recognizing homosexual relationships as deserving of the right to marry.
Some of the negative attitudes our culture possesses towards homosexuality can be attributed to religious bias. A large majority of Filipinos were brought up Catholics; even government offices practice Catholic prayer schedules, such as the Angelus and First Friday Mass. It’s difficult to blame the average Filipino for his insensitivity against the LGBT community if, since birth, he’s been taught that homosexuality is wrong and unnatural – and even more so if he’s never been taught any better.
The accepting-but-not-so hypocrisy towards homosexuality is created by our expanding views and religious biases. Medina has never been one to shy away from this fact. In 1992, six years before The Powerpuff Girls’ HIM hit the scene, Medina depicted Lucifer himself as “Lady Lucy,” the fabulously gay mastermind in Pugad Baboy’s Hiwaga ng Duenas storyline. How biting was it when the Catholic Church’s greatest foe was revealed to be gay, and yet, despite all his dark power (even transforming his henchman into a toad as punishment), he graciously admitted defeat and departed without harming our heroes? He was made out to be the source of all the horrors that plagued an entire town, but at the same time strangely likeable. We were raised to hate the Devil, yet loved every single strip in which Lady Lucy appeared.
Are we supposed to accept homosexuality? According to ultra-conservative Catholicism, no. Do we do it anyway? Yes, to a degree – and for now, that’s a good thing. It can be better, however, and that’s ultimately the point Medina was making in the strip that ended up getting him suspended.
Was it an attack on the religious sentiments that helped forge our hypocrisies? Perhaps, but if so, the attack was not made with malice. It was a critique, an opinion, and no one deserves to be crucified for that.
It’s SATIRE.
Medina routinely points out the faults, inconsistencies, and shortcomings of Filipino culture, and he does it in a way that’s both thoughtful and funny. He’s helped us learn through laughter at our mistakes, and opened our minds to alternative, often better, perspectives. He calls our politicians corrupt, our police force self-serving, our workers lazy and entitled, our youth arrogant and ignorant, our masses uneducated, and our media agencies inept. This is something he’s been paid to do for 25 years, because he’s good at making us giggle while speaking the truth about all these faults.
I’m not a fan of his “consPIGracy” theory that the strip is a cover for the real culprits, a series of anti-Marcos strips. The Inquirer made a name for itself as an unbiased source of news during the Martial Law era, a defining characteristic that eventually drew the politically inclined Medina to the publication. Yes, the timing and nature of the strip’s printing are questionable, but it’s better to remain skeptical until something more concrete pops up.
The real offense, in my opinion, lies in how poorly we tend to react to satire and criticism in general. The jokes made at Christopher Lao and Paula Salvosa’s expenses show that we can certainly dish it out, but taking it is another story. How many public apologies have we demanded of Hollywood for its own jokes and opinions? Why is it that we laugh someone makes a fool of himself, and respond with outrage when he laughs at us? Why do we go from “Katangahan ang ginagawa mo,” to “Walang basagan ng trip,” when the tables are turned?
Just as we tend to be hypocritical with our attitudes towards homosexuality, we have an astounding double standard when it comes to making fun of people’s faults. One of our country’s most-beloved comic strips became a victim of this fact.
What was so offensive about Pugad Baboy? Just about everything, if you looked hard enough. That’s what made it so good. That's what made it so funny.
It's a shame we've forgotten how to laugh at ourselves.
Major props to http://potsquared.wordpress.com/pugad-baboy-strips/ for being an awesome resource for pics.