Campaign fun

What is it with our new breed of politicians? Politesse seems to have been left out of their crash course on civic discourse.

- Joseph T. Gonzales

Running for congressman in Pasig, lawyer Christian Sia thought it was funny to quip that once a year, menstruating solo moms could sign up, and he would willingly sleep with them. As a favor. As his service to humanity. We woke up to the sounds of women activists barfing.

Naturally, candidate Sia is accused as being misogynist, but I actually thought it was ageist as well. Why the emphasis on the presence of menstruation? Did he not think that menopausal women have needs too? If he was really concerned about the loneliness of women in his district, he should have made his stud services available to all women. Menstruating or not. Or men.

That campaign joke might have been crass enough, and costly enough to merit sudden nationwide opprobrium, except candidate Sia wasn't done. In a subsequent campaign sortie, he defended himself by asking his staffer, purportedly the wife of his good friend, to come up on stage with him.