At their face value, these words from singer Jim Paredes could easily win him the accolade of being an honest, principled person who just committed the mistake of chatting in the internet naked while performing a lewd act.
But then he followed his apology with these words:
“There are already too many lies and liars in this world. I do not wish to be part of that cabal. I have chosen to be truthful because I know that painful as truth can be, it will eventually set me free.”
Hence, his words no longer constitute a sincere act of contrition but were actually loaded with a not-so-subtle attack. In fact, it can be construed, knowing Paredes and considering the prevailing contentious issues in Philippine politics, that his words appeared to be aimed at those he and his friends have recently accused of dishonesty.
His very first reaction when confronted with his scandalous performance caught on camera and broadcast in cyberspace was a one-word denial that it was fake. He later made a complete turnaround and admitted it was true, and he is making us believe that he is sincerely sorry.
He is not. In fact, his is a carefully worded press release that reeks of a partisan attack hiding behind the mask of an apology.
It would have been more authentic had Paredes simply apologized, and stopped there. It would have been a sincere gesture of an imperfect man who was caught with his pants down, literally. After all, he would not be the first person to have engaged in a cybersexual act. Even Paredes, like any other person, is entitled to his own kinky fetish, or sexual fantasy. It is not the business of the public, actually, if people enjoy being tied up or whipped, or if they get high on filming themselves while doing their own private thing.
Paredes asserts that his indiscretion was supposed to be private. Indeed, it should have been. And it is actually easy to concede that he was more of a victim here, and it is apparent that either he was betrayed by the one at the receiving end of the video communication and leaked the supposedly private content, or someone hacked his computer or that of the audience of his private show. Obviously, Paredes’ right to his private fantasies was violated and now has become a public perversion. It is also obvious that a cybercrime has been committed in which Paredes is the victim.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for many to see Paredes as a victim. What many see as the naked truth about him more than his actual nudity is that of a man who behaves as if he were above moral reproach, such as when he condemns the sins of President Duterte and the Marcoses. He is seen more as someone who looks down upon and insults those with whom he disagrees politically, as shown vividly in the manner he once arrogantly stared down pro-Duterte demonstrators in front of the People Power Monument on EDSA, with eyes brimming with disdain, if not contempt. He speaks as if he has moral superiority over all of us.
Paredes is the face of the elitist crowd that has heaped scorn for so long at people who support the President and who voted for Bongbong Marcos. His misfortune is that he is not morally superior over us, a fact that he himself has admitted, but in fact tried to hide with an air of arrogance. He spoke like an icon of decency, and had this video not surfaced, he would have continued to remind us of the perversions of the Marcoses as though he himself were unblemished.
What undermines Paredes’ pretense at a sincere apology is his readiness to politicize it. He quickly blamed his enemies for causing his misfortune when he said: “I can only surmise that in this ugly season of toxic politics, muckrakers determined to neutralize my influence by violating my privacy and digging up dirt on me are at work.”
Yet, supporters and defenders of Paredes make it appear like his critics were the ones politicizing the issue. In defense of Paredes, they make it appear as though his political enemies forced him to strip naked, sit in front of his computer monitor, and engage in a sexual performance for someone at the other end of the cybersexual encounter.
But then again, this is characteristic of the cabal to which Paredes belongs. They find it easy to project onto others what they are experts at doing. They appear to be paragons of virtue and honesty. They pounce on President Duterte’s sexual sins and vulgar conduct, even as they gloss over Paredes’ perversion. They incessantly remind us of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses but not the ill-gotten votes of Leni Robredo. They taunt Imee over her allegedly fake diplomas and credentials, even as they turn a blind eye to Rappler’s false representation of itself as a Filipino-owned mass media company. Paredes blaming his enemies for his misfortune is just so characteristic of Noynoy Aquino’s proclivity to blame others.
May this be a learning moment for Paredes and for anyone who is in the habit of demeaning others, and this is true for all regardless of political color and persuasion. This is particularly true for social media bloggers and influencers who love to take down others, behaving and perceiving themselves as demigods. They just have to make sure their closets are clean, and their perversions are truly hidden. If they can’t be good, they just have to avoid being careless or they may end up like Paredes whose naked truth was exposed for all the world to see and mock.
https://www.manilatimes.net/the-naked-truth-about-jim-paredes-perversion/536139/
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