What’s the fuss?

The upside in the controversy over Napoleon Brandy advertisements: I haven’t heard men bragging lately that they consider any woman above 18 too old to be their sex partners. You can almost hear the sheepish male whispers: You mean it’s wrong to want a 15-year-old?

The response of Distileria Limtuaco, maker of the brandy, was hardly surprising. Instead of apologizing over an ad that women and church groups have found offensive, the company sued the Advertising Board yesterday for ordering a pullout of the ad. On International Women’s Day last Monday, the giant billboards were still there, in effect defiantly asking, "What’s the fuss?"

What has opposition presidential candidate Panfilo Lacson have to say about this, I wonder? A known ladies’ man when he was a cop, does Lacson have any plans for women’s welfare in case he wins? Until about a week ago, it was the senator’s face that sold Napoleon Brandy. Now his face has been replaced on the billboards by the question: "Nakatikim ka na ba ng kinse anyos?"

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In its literal English translation – Have you tasted a 15-year-old? – the question may sound innocuous. But anyone familiar with Tagalog idiom will make no mistake about it: the "kinse anyos" referred to can only be a 15-year-old human, normally a girl, although these days it can refer to a boy. Filipinos don’t use the term "kinse anyos" to describe the age of a car, a ship, a plane, or for that matter, an alcoholic drink. Even in the case of pets such as cats and dogs, when someone asks — "How old is the bitch?" – we don’t reply, "Kinse anyos" or "dos años."

And anyone familiar with Tagalog idiom will make no mistake about the sexual connotation of the question, "Nakatikim ka na ba ng kinse anyos?"

Any Tagalog-speaking person who says otherwise is either a hypocrite or is trying to save an expensive advertising campaign from going down the drain. Or has the IQ of a certain presidential candidate, and I’m not referring to Ping Lacson. Being a recent endorser of Napoleon Brandy, what does Lacson have to say about this controversy?

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I can understand why certain quarters, predominantly male, are asking what the fuss is all about. This is, after all, the Philippines, where in the not-too-distant past, things had always been in their proper places: dogs were for eating, women were for making babies.

And this is, after all, the Third World, in Asia, where men purposely seek out adolescent virgins for sex, believing such girls (and boys) are free of sexually transmitted diseases, and also believing that through intercourse, youth can be imbibed by some arcane osmosis.

A market has boomed to meet this demand. Child prostitutes are among our tourist attractions, right up there with comic coup attempts. Among the most popular Philippine Internet sites are those selling children for sex. The sites attract mostly Westerners.

It is common to hear macho Pinoys 50 years or older bragging that they don’t take as lovers any girl older than 18. This is not an idle boast. These guys even brag about maintaining "scholarship funds" to get their young mistresses through college; sometimes the "scholarships" start in high school.

For these men, a woman looks like a cow after giving birth twice, and any woman 40 or older is certified geriatric.

You can’t even prick these men’s conscience by reminding them of their teenage daughters. The Pinoy male chauvinist mindset is that daughters are meant to pay for their fathers’ sexual promiscuity – pambayad sa utang. You can’t fight fate.

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There is also the argument that the female body, in various stages of undress, has been a fixture in Philippine advertising and mass media. What’s the big difference between cleavage and suggestive words? Okay, so the "bold" pictures don’t emphasize the age of the models. But why quibble over details?

Distileria Limtuaco is insisting that the words in its ad have no sexual undertones. So the company slapped the Advertising Board yesterday with a P5-million civil suit. Now we know the board can exercise neither police powers nor moral persuasion over its members.

The company said the board usurped the functions of the Department of Trade and Industry, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board and the National Telecommunications Commission. That should give women’s groups an idea of where to bring their complaints.

What do these government agencies have to say about this controversy? I’d guess nothing, if they are full of men who fantasize about tasting 15-year-olds. It’s the culture, stupid.

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HE SHALL RETURN: Ronald Post, US Embassy counselor for public affairs, clarified that US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone intends to return to Manila.

"The only reward for the onerous task that he’s taken on is to be able to come back to the Philippines," Post told me by phone the other night.

Ricciardone left earlier this year to help set up a democratic government in Iraq, where he was once assigned by the Clinton administration to undermine the regime of Saddam Hussein. Ricciardone is keeping his post as ambassador to Manila during his indefinite stay in Washington.

His abrupt departure triggered speculation that the Bush administration wanted to stay neutral in a tight Philippine presidential race. Embassy officials call this "over-interpretation" and insist the US government does not interfere in elections in other countries. Post told me there’s simply too much work to be done in Iraq.

"If there’s any place that Ambassador Ricciardone would like to be right now it’s the Philippines," Post said. "If he could be here for the elections then he would be… The only thing that’s keeping him is the task that Secretary (of State Colin) Powell has given him."

Like Ricciardone, Post could not say with certainty when the ambassador might return.

"He’d love to be here for the inauguration (of the Philippine president on June 30) but world events may intervene," Post said. "But he’ll be back as soon as he can."

Washington has set June 30 as its self-imposed deadline for putting in place a sovereign government in Iraq, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing Ricciardone here by then. But he could be in town in late July for the joint opening of Congress and the first State of the Nation Address of whoever becomes president in May.