Election Year Is Here and Look Who's Grandstanding

It's Nicole all over again. Erick Bairnals Shcks, the Panamanian national accused of raping a Pinay, has spoken and he says what he and Pamela did was consensual sex.

Via a closed circuit television (CCTV) installed in the Panamanian's condo, the pair was seen holding hands while entering the condo's lobby and kissing inside the elevator. I like that Pamela seems to have so much faith in a man's ability to keep his pants' on. Oh, but honey, the world doesn't work that way.

The video casts doubts on Pamela's statement to the police and media. But then again, who really knows what happened that night? It's now a case of He said, She said. It's frustrating for all of us kibitzers, so where is the freakin' sex video so we can see for ourselves who is telling the truth?

All joking aside, where are Pamela's parents to teach her to behave the equivalent of "don't talk to strangers?" If you really must go out with a man you fancy to become your BF, then go to neutral places and make sure to be accompanied by chaperones. I know that is too old fashioned to some, but nothing is too old fashioned to protect yourself against abuse. That is what I think.

I am sure senators Tito Sotto and Loren Legarda feel for Pamela, but me thinks there is also an element of grandstanding on these lawmakers' action. The haste by which Sotto and Legarda jumped on the case leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. How come nobody bothered to get the story of the alleged rapist? So it's now coming out that what happened COULD have been a case of a sex deal gone bad.

We live in a different world know. Rape is not a crime that you automatically believe has been committed against a woman because you believe nobody will admit to that kind of abuse if it is not true. Today, rape can be used to exhort money or catapult yourself to stardom.

So what can we teach our young daughters about women like Pamela? We must teach them that "foreigners are not the answer to poverty."