It all started with a report, the contents of which are rather boring and philo-ish for a happy, bouncy blog like mine. In a nutshell, our duty [or burden] for the day was to argue on the role of human laws in preserving morality in a community. That minus the context, the definition of terms and all the drama was the supposed to be the whole of our two hours.

And then after the reporters were finished reading, I asked something about the credibility of our lawmakers in assessing external moral influences to their constituents. It was that simple.

Until our professor started interpreting my question towards a scale that gobbled up things such as imposition of standards of decency and morality in a universal scale. Err.

Blablabla. There and there. All of us started blabbering about stuffs. The economics majors said something about marketing responsibility, the philo majors summoned Kant and everybody else in tombstones, and then the dying psych major in me uttered things like prejudice and associations.

Then, the most exciting sub-topic ever: What are the delineations of our laws in terms of the public or private sphere? How can the law hold true and be authoritative in highly private matters?

Which, in a greater level of specificity, translates to this: What can you say about the Metro Manila ordinance banning men who are half-naked in 'public places'? Is it right to go up to the extent that they are put to jail for 24 to 36 hours?

Somebody said in a public sphere, everyone has their own business, and so nobody can tell you to get a life and get a freaking t-shirt.

Somebody said it's something about our culture, challenge the ordinance, challenge the culture.

I said it's about prejudice, an ordinance rooted on prejudice and premature associations, that half-naked men equate to murderers and hoodlums for the prejudiced mind.

Somebody said I was exaggerating. It wasn't prejudice, it was 'negative association'.

I was kinda blown away by the euphemism and challenged his usage of the terms.

And then ate political science major, in all her bubbly persona, spoke: [this is not verbatim, just the gist, as I filtered it]

Half-naked men in public places should be banned. Why? Because the fact that they dress like that in a public domain is so offensive. Given that I have this certain level of tolerance on things like this, I might be offended, and so, it is just right to ban such offensive way of dressing.

Okay, ate. You're offended. And then I said:

But we have to ask, why should we even be offended? And why say that such offense on our part would reach to the extent that we allow these men to be punished and go to jail just because of being half-naked? Does being half-naked in public places pose any direct immediate harm to us so much so that we actually have to jail these half-naked men? How can you be offended then, what do you even mean by 'offensive'?

And then ate said:

Offensive..kumbaga..panget yung katawan niya..eh di ma-ooffend ka..

And that she said with an obvious attempt at breaking all the tension.


Everybody laughed. I was nearly gasping for air.


Translating that: Kung panget yung katawan at half-naked siya sa harap ko, then by all means, ikulong niyo siya!

Even Sir Valero laughed [I think], and fifteen minutes before that, he mimicked the pose of an FHM girl just to point out his thoughts on pornography, you know, with the outstretched arm, protruding chest and the horny face.

What a memorable day.