Gabriela wished to discourage Filipinos “from the bad practice of sharing sleazy videos” by spreading the counter-message of the “Manila Scandal Part 2.” It hopes to “mobilize the public to use the internet in solving one of the scourges of electronic harassment, bullying and violence against women” by posting the video to their FB account or website and through Twitter by using the #manilascandal2 hashtag.
By MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN
Davao Today
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — A militant lawmaker urged Facebook (FB) users to end electronic violence against women (e-VAW) by adding “-Scandal” to their last name and to change their cover photos. The move was part of the women’s group Gabriela’s “Bury the Past” campaign.
“This will help bury real scandal videos in the results of search engines,” Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) Representative Luz Ilagan posted in her FB timeline.
Sex scandal videos have proliferated online, attaching stigma to women victims. One case in point is the video involving showbiz personalities Hayden Kho and Katrina Halili.
If the campaign against e-VAW — a new form of violence through the electronic medium, particularly the spread of sex scandal videos — musters enough support, seamy videos will be buried as search engines like Google and Yahoo are disrupted.
On Saturday in Manila, Gabriela launched its interactive online campaign action in commemoration of the e-VAW awareness week. Through the video it produced entitled, “Manila Scandal Part 2,” the women’s group hopes to share the “victim’s personal tragedy” and to show the “personal as well as social costs to individual women as well as women collectively.”
Gabriela collaborated with the award-winning advertising agency DM9JaymeSyf to produce an output “exactly like a sequel to a sex scandal video,” in the hope to get the public’s attention especially those who like to watch sex scandal videos.
“What our video actually shows is the story of a woman after her sex scandal video spread. How she was shamed, expelled, disowned and how she contemplated suicide,” the Gabriela-Philippines National Secretariat said in its FB page.
It added, “If we get enough of our target to watch this, and see the real implications of their actions, it can definitely lessen their spreading of sex scandal videos.”
Gabriela wished to discourage Filipinos “from the bad practice of sharing sleazy videos” by spreading the counter-message of the “Manila Scandal Part 2.” It hopes to “mobilize the public to use the internet in solving one of the scourges of electronic harassment, bullying and violence against women” by posting the video to their FB account or website and through Twitter by using the #manilascandal2 hashtag.
“All forms of violence against women should be stopped from domestic, street, intimate relations, electronic and the State,” Mae Fe Templa, program head of Assumption College of Davao’s Social Work Department.
Templa said Gabriela’s campaign is effective because “it is a new form of protest. It uses the material but with a twist to bring it closer to what really happened to women when their identities are exposed online for further humiliation and degradation. When their families disown them, they tend to end their lives.”
First District Councilor Leah Librado-Yap said she believes it’s timely to include the internet in this campaign because it has become “a common venue for women all across the globe to be abused in every imaginable manner.”
“Scandals involving women are often posted, viewed and spread over the internet. To stop the proliferation of electronic violence which targets women should be the call — this has to be our call, if not, our cause to put a halt to women exploitation,” Librado-Yap said. (davaotoday.com by Marilou Aguirre-Tuburan)
Gender Issues
