[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’ Women blast Joe, Ed for ‘verbal harassment’ ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY GLENDA SOLOGASTOA
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Friday, August 18, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
ILOILO City – “Verbal harassment” was how a group of women considered the comments made by Vice Mayor Jose Espinosa III and Councilor Eduardo Peñaredondo on breastfeeding during Tuesday’s session of the Sangguniang Panlungsod (SP).
“To our local government officials, you can always justify (those comments) as manly joke(s) but for us women, (those were) disrespectful and…a verbal harassment on our personal choice to use our breasts for nurturing,” read part of the open letter issued by the Breastfeeding Ilonggas (BFI), a group of women promoting breast milk as the best nutritional start in life for babies.
August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month pursuant to Republic Act 10028 or the Expanded Breastfeeding Promotion Act of 2009.
BFI’s open letter was addressed to Espinosa and Peñaredondo, both lawyers and family men.
“It’s just sad that our society has over-sexualized a woman’s body,” the group lamented, “(that) even government leaders consider it acceptable to use a woman’s breast as part of their sex jokes.”
It reminded Espinosa and Peñaredondo that women’s breasts were “a natural form of nurturing a child through breastfeeding.”
According to BFI members, their husbands and partners also “expressed their disgust and they are taking a stand, too, because they understand how much sacrifice their wives do just to sustain breastfeeding.”
A LAUGHING MATTER?
The controversy stemmed from Mayor Jed Patrik Mabilog’s endorsement of a memorandum of understanding between two private hospitals – AMOSUP Seamen’s Hospital and Iloilo Doctors’ Hospital – to establish lactation/breastfeeding stations in workplaces.
Espinosa asked the SP, “Ano ‘ni hambal ‘ya? Kabudlay sini. Ang ga-istorya di’ seamen kag breastfeeding?”
Peñaredondo replied, “Ma-put up bala ang hospital sang kwarto nga palasupsupan bala…ang bata bala mag-sup—-, mag-dede bala.”
“Ang supsop lain man na ‘ya sa dede,” Espinosa retorted, eliciting laughter from colleagues and spectators.
Peñaredondo replied, “Abi ko pareho lang, magdede gale….ang bata ‘ya ang ga-dede…”
Espiñosa asked, “Ang supsop ‘ya, ano ‘na ‘ya?”
Then he added: “Amo na gani, iban nga mga tatay indi gusto, kay siling nila ‘Akon ‘na ‘ya, ngaa pahilabtan sang bata ko.’”
APOLOGY
Yesterday, Peñaredondo turned emotional as he publicly apologized.
“I regret so much nga amo na ang nagkawas sa akon kwan. I don’t want to demean or disturb or insult sa aton mga kababainhan,” said the SP floor leader in an interview over DyFM Bombo Radyo-Iloilo.
Espinosa, the SP presiding officer, also made a public apology.
“It was never my intention to be disrespectful sa aton mga ginikanan kay ti may nanay man kita kag bata ko puro man babaye,” said Espinosa over DyRI RMN-Iloilo. “Nagapangayo gid kita sang pasaylo.”
According to Peñaredondo, he would again issue a public apology in the next session of the city council and would move to delete from the records of their Aug. 15 session his insensitive comments on breastfeeding.
He admitted that the conversation was “kalaw-ay.”
“I wish to express my deep and sincere apology…Ang akon nanay bala daw na-insultohan ko man siya,” he said.
According to the councilor, he was so ashamed that he wanted to resign as SP floor leader.
“Kon may mabulos sa akon ma-resign ako,” he said./PN
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
