The patriarchy rears its ugly head again this election season.
Links leading to an alleged sex video of Aika Robredo, Vice President Leni Robredo’s daughter, started circulating on social media on April 11. According to netizens, it was a deepfake: controversial AI-generated media that simulates real content by swapping out faces. That obviously has dangerous implications, and has been used to create fake celebrity sex videos and political hoaxes.
(Preen.ph has tried opening the links to verify the content for this article, but the video itself seems to have either been taken down or buried under a sledge of malware, so we can neither confirm nor deny the allegations. However, the pages where the video was hosted and bear the name of Aika do exist.)
Leni’s camp called it a “malicious fabrication” meant to distract voters from the coming elections next month. They have also stated that they are reviewing their legal options with their lawyers.
Senatorial aspirant Chel Diokno condemned the defamation attempt as “misogynistic attacks.” “Google should not allow itself to be used for crimes against women,” he said.
Revenge porn is violence
Why spread fake porn about a presidentiable’s daughter, someone who is neither a public figure nor in politics herself?
The video, if netizens are correct, is a deepfake pretending to be revenge porn—a.k.a. pornographic content released without the consent of the participating individuals. The goal of revenge porn is clear: to humiliate and shame the persons in the video. It’s absolutely a form of sexual violence. And with the advent of deepfakes, anyone can be a victim to revenge porn, even if you’ve never actually made a sex video yourself. Now, someone can make pornographic material with your likeness without your consent.
Let me make it clear. There is nothing wrong with having sex, filming yourself, or even releasing it to the internet. The problem lies with lack of consent. Agreeing to be filmed by a partner does not mean agreeing to be filmed for the rest of the world to see. Leaked nudes and sex tapes are a violation of sexual consent. It’s sexual assault and constitutes digital abuse.
Bringing this back to Robredo, the fake porn of her daughter being spread is definitely a political move, even if other camps have denied their involvement. For prospective voters, it works almost like a gotcha moment: look, this woman can’t be a leader, her daughter has sex! For her camp, it’s a warning: look, we will tear down your daughters, too. We will humiliate and shame them.
Demonization of women’s sexuality
Women’s sexual history—real or imagined—are constantly used against them. It’s used to shame them, or to accuse them of doing, or be capable of doing, something graver, as if a woman’s sexual agency is a barometer of her humanity. Men who have sex are never faced with the same kind of shame as the women who do. This is a function of the patriarchy, a way to keep women in check.
These attacks happen so often to women in politics that there is a word for it: gendered disinformation. Defined as “online gendered abuse that uses false or misleading gender and sex-based narratives against women,” it comes with the intention of excluding women from public spaces.
In 2016, former senator Leila de Lima faced this very thing. When she was accused of being involved in the drug trade, the crux of the argument was that she had an affair with her driver. For this, President Rodrigo Duterte publicly called her an “immoral woman”—big for a man who’s publicly admitted to being a womanizer and defended adultery.
A good chunk of the probe was devoted to whether or not there were sex tapes of the two, and how disgusted the other (male) senators were by the thought of this. She has been in detention since 2017. In 2021, despite having already been acquitted of one drug case, the court dismissed her and her driver’s appeal to junk the case for insufficient evidence. The court’s statement read that they “must present their evidence to prove their innocence of the crime charged.” I thought the line was innocent until proven guilty?
“As a woman, as a mother and as a victim of weaponized misogyny driven by dirty politics, I join all decent Filipinos in condemning the latest attempt to damage VP Leni’s campaign through the spread of vile fake news about members of her family,” de Lima said in support of the Robredos. “Demonizing women has been a go-to, and desperate, political strategy in the past 6 years. Galawang sindikato talaga. Matitigil lang yan kapag natanggalan na ng sungay ang mga nagtatangkang bumalik sa kapangyarihan, at yung mga nagtatangkang manatili.”
It’s tempting to say hey, it’s 2022, what gives? Isn’t misogyny and sexism becoming passe? But progress isn’t linear. Feminism isn’t a given, and democracies stand to lose without it. As long as there are people in power who continue to uphold the patriarchy, we continue to struggle. And that’s why we need to continue to fight. We cannot let misogyny win.
Art by Pammy Orlina
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