'Rape Exist Because of Rapist' is Unquestionably Correct

Vice President Leni Robredo who stated 'Rape exist Because of Rapist'
as a reply to President Duterte rape jokes.

The idea that ‘Rape Exist Because of Rapist’ is unquestionably correct. However to see how absurd the idea was to be considered as something ‘Innovative’ we need to look at the logic between the victim and the attacker in a crime.

There are two questions that leads to such statement: Who are the rapists? And How could we stop them? The feminist approach would be, ‘Men are notorious in committing rape so they should be the one fixing this problem’ this statement seemingly sounded the same with ‘There is rape because of rapist’ suggesting that rape would cease to exist if the ‘rapist’ would not rape. In such instance the burden of preventing a crime rest solely on the attacker which literally suggest that people are indeed asshole and we, as a potential victim, should do nothing about it because it is their problem why they are an asshole. This is unrealistic and thus absurd in real world.

The first question: Who are the rapists? This can’t be answered straight on unless someone did it, afterall a murderer can’t be a murderer if he didn’t kill someone nor a thief. So we’re speaking about a ‘Potential’ rapist and potential means everybody and the only difference would be the possibilities or our capabilities to commit it. Surely a decent person wouldn’t do such thing unless he was gone insane. I’ve discussed this to other people who found VP Leni’s quote reasonable to the point that it is highly realistic. Of course I met a firm resistance as I approach the problem objectively.

We could not stop it by denying the facts about the ‘potential’ of other people around you. It happens that rapist or criminals have no common face to begin with, no physical features that suggest a hint that a certain people is capable of doing horrible crimes. We could prevent this from happening by setting up preventive measures. The burden of preventing a crime doesn’t rest merely on the potential attacker but also on the potential victim of a crime. Though this doesn’t suggest a guarantee that we could be saved in an accident but rather it gave us a safety net from a potential crime.

It has been a debate between liberal minded and conservative people concerning about the ‘word of wisdom’ spoken by Vice President Leni Robredo after the horrifying murder of Christine Silawan in Cebu. Before the official autopsy report came to light, netizen and authorities alike assumed that the victim was raped as seen on the scene of the crime whereas the victim was found half-naked and her face skinned. Hashtag #YesToDeathPenalty trends in social media, though it received widely positive remarks, Otso Diretso candidate Chel Diokno insist that death penalty is not the answer to stop people from committing a crime especially rape but rather he noted how important the ‘certainty’ of punishment. There are few who supported his view including those in church who, at most cases, insist about the sanctity of life.

Rape is a horrible crime and we’ve been taught against it including other crime that perverted other individual rights. However even in the peak of our civilization, which we expect everybody to be decent, we can’t deny the fact that there are other people that could ‘pervert’ our individual rights. This is the reason why rules exists, to remind us the limitation of our freedom. Thus, as I stated, the idea that ‘There is rape because of rapist’ is unquestionably correct but not specifically helpful in practical sense. It is a sort of common phrase we heard ‘Walang manloloko kung walang magpapaloko’ and sometimes we laughingly reverse it ‘Walang magpapaloko kung walang manloloko’ which litirally sound the same. Since we, Filipino, are emotional creatures, less likely to be inclined in logical matters, we most likely consider the victim as the lesser player that did nothing wrong and thus we heavily sympathize to this player without an exception as if putting it in a pedestal. Such reason ceased the fundamental idea that explains the absurdity of VP Leni’s statement.