Under fire

A recent post by Rappler on its website has drawn flak from netizens. The post was in reaction to the furor in France over a ban on burkinis. The post carried a photo of two women, one in a regular bikini, the other in a burkini. Beneath the photo was a caption that read: "It's time to stop telling women what to wear at the beach. It is 2016. Women can vote, women can work, women can even be heads of state ... rappler.com."

Up to that point, the caption was well taken. It was a valid one. But that was apparently not what drew the flak. It was another comment above the photo that apparently got the goat of netizens. The comment above the photo recalled an incident in Cebu that had absolutely nothing in common with the furor in France about the ban on burkinis.

Here is how the comment above the photo read: "In the Philippines, we should not forget that 5 girls from the St. Theresa's College in Cebu were banned from marching at their graduation because they posted pictures of themselves at the beach wearing bikinis." To those who do not know the background to this incident, it would indeed seem that the furor about burkinis and the STC incident are somehow related.

But they are not. The circumstances surrounding the two incidents are completely different. If Rappler knew about the difference, it should have cited the STC circumstances to provide context. If it did not know the difference, it should have contacted STC to be appraised about the story. In either case, Rappler acted very irresponsibly and, as a supposedly professional news organization, should apologize to all those affected by its irresponsibility.

The furor over the burkini has religious and racist undertones, perhaps underscoring a clash of cultures. The STC incident involved purely academic regulations and school discipline. According to STC rules, provided to each student in the form of a handbook, students must conduct themselves appropriately in public. As a Catholic institution, STC reserves the right to define propriety in accordance with its Catholic views. If it says no bikinis, then no bikinis, or enroll elsewhere.

STC never abused its authority nor overstepped its bounds in imposing discipline on the five students and setting an example for the rest of the student body to see that school regulations are not just a compilation of stern words that do not mean anything. It did not stop the girls from graduating. It merely did not allow them to join the graduation march.

As the burkini furor in France involved a court decision overturning the ban on the Muslim-inspired swimwear imposed by several mayors, Rappler should have also gone, for its own responsible enlightenment, over the court cases that proceeded from the STC incident. Those court cases went all the way up to the Supreme Court which ruled in favor of STC with finality.

In a nutshell, the Supreme Court granted that STC had the right and the authority to discipline its students. But that is on the legal part of it. Outside the legal framework, it is common sense that when you enroll in a school, you are voluntarily submitting yourself to its rules and guidelines. If you do not like the rules at STC, the school is not forcing you to enroll there.

Just because the STC incident had a bikini element to it doesn't mean it had anything to do with the freedom of women to wear anything anywhere. The burkini furor in France speaks of a much larger issue that touches women wherever they may be, not just in France. Which is why the caption below the photo in the Rappler post was valid, and why the comment above it made everything completely wrong and exposed Rappler as a shoot-fromthe-hip media gunslinger.

No wonder Rappler is being castigated in daily editorials by DZRJ. It appears Rappler questioned the credentials of DZRJ boss RJ Jacinto as economic adviser to President Duterte, seeing him as nothing more than a rocker.

As with the STC case, Rappler apparently never bothered to find out that the Jacinto family was among the early industrialists before martial law, owning a steel mill, a bank, and other businesses before martial law took their assets and drove them away into exile.