The video exposure, not the sex

Let us stop invoking morality as an issue in the Hayden Kho-Katrina Halili sex video controversy. Not that the issue is not laced with immorality. It is. In fact it stinks with immorality to high heavens.

But why invoke morality as an issue only now when this whole country is flooded with similar sex videos? Is it because of the popularity of the personalities involved — a doctor who happens to have high profile liaisons and a sexy starlet?

Getting upset about immorality in this way, in kicks and spurts, is the clearest reason why immorality has taken root in the fiber of Filipino society instead. There is no consistent outrage against immorality in this country, only erratic hypocrisy-induced mood swings.

Against such a backdrop, how can anyone, especially the young, get a clear and unambiguous understanding of what immorality is? If a thing is sometimes okay and sometimes not the resulting gray area in-between becomes a compelling place of refuge.

And that is why this particular sex video came into being — because it seemed okay to do so for as long as the private act remained a private act. The explosion came only when the video started making the rounds.

Had the video stayed hidden and private, nobody would be poking their fingers into the eyes of Kho and Halili in righteous indignation, even if people had their suspicions that the two were actually doing it and what they were doing might be immoral.

On the other hand, in hypocritical Philippine society, where machismo runs unbridled, the sexploits of Kho and Halili would have made for very engaging coffee table conversation or bar counter banter had no material evidence surfaced.

Because you see, we all love intrigues and scandals, especially of the sexual kind, and even more especially if they involve the rich or famous. Whatever calisthenics Kho and Halili did, had they stayed within the rumor mills, would not have rubbed our hypocrisy the wrong way.

You rub hypocrisy the right way and it will fall on its back like a pig wanting an underbelly massage. Rub it the wrong way, and you are suddenly confronted by a duly agitated mother hen.

But of course Kho and Halili cannot escape and must not be allowed to escape unscathed, both of them. Kho, because he is virtually everything that Senator Bong Revilla said he is. But Halili also, because without the leak she was as into the act as was Kho.

They were having consensual sex, remember? It was just the video that spoiled the whole scenario. So forget about the sex, and the immorality that is attendant to it. Let us focus on the video, because that is where the hideousness of Kho is proven.

Forget, too, the issue of exploiting women. Without the video, try asking Halili if she was ever exploited in an act that she submitted to with probable gusto. But with the video in the picture, culpability suddenly descends on two unequal planes.

Clearly, based on the foregoing, Kho must bear the brunt of what punishment he must truly deserve. For the guy is sick. There is something terribly wrong with him. He needs to be reoriented to the kind of reality available to most normal people.

So, while I have my suspicions about the motives of Senator Revilla in exposing the scandal, I would still go along with his notion that Kho should be stripped of his license as a doctor. He is someone no one can safely trust or confide in.