STRAIGHT TO THE POINT: Why does Jim Paredes’ scandal go viral?

Atty. Ruphil Bañoc

I would like to venture to say that ordinarily, no one is interested to watch a scandal involving a senior citizen. No one is engrossed to watch a 67-year-old doing masturbation in a recorded video.

I guess people from all walks of life have common feeling of distaste in viewing the scandal. The gender does not matter at all. I am pretty sure that any man will experience nausea watching a scandal of an old man doing masturbation.

Mr. Jim Paredes, the 67-year-old lead singer of the well-known APO Hiking Society band, has finally admitted that the viral video was real and that he was the one seen in the video doing the act. He apologized for his irresponsibility.

At first, Paredes denied that he was the one in the video and describe it as “fake.” But when it became viral, he changed his stand. He tried to qualify that the video was private, and not mean for public consumption. (Of course it is not!) He questioned why it became public.

So, why it become public? And why did it become viral?

Of course, Paredes has an idea of his own doings. He can give the lead to the PNP if he wants to run after the violator. After all the PNP has offered to help him in finding the responsible person who violated his privacy by posting it on social media. But he has to calculate his moves.

As to why it became viral, there are two possible reasons: First, it is because of his prominence being a lead singer of APO Hiking Society. In fact, in traditional media news writing, prominence is one of the elements. The same is true with social media. No one cares if Paredes is just an ordinary Juan de La Cruz who exists in this country.

Second, he is a well-known hard core vocal critic against a popular president of this country, Rodrigo Duterte. When he criticized, he is trying to make it appear that the president has not done a single good act to this country. He cast the president as not a good model for the youth.

He even went below the belt by calling President Duterte as “maniac” and “bastos.” He also called Mocha Uson immoral. So what he was trying to project himself? A clean person?

Note, that the president enjoys 80 percent favorable rating from the Filipino people. Putting it simply, eight out of every 10 Filipinos are on his side. When Paredes attacked the president, the majority come forward to his defense.

Consequently, this time when Paredes is facing his own crises in life because of his own doings, the president’s defenders grab the opportunity to make Paredes experience the dose of his own medicine. There is an old Cebuano saying that says, ”Way sukod sa bawos.”

While he admitted that he made a mistake in his statement, he also tried to maneuver by blaming “toxic politics” as the one behind of this incident. People are still waiting who among the opposition agrees with his statement. So far, none of the senatorial candidates has come to his rescue.

Nevertheless, the Paredes’ incident is again a reminder and a lesson for everyone not to make bad on-line footprints in this digital era.