Hannibal Lecter’s Whore: Blog Of

            I am a victim of circumstance. Had I not been born in this era, I don’t think I would be judged as this. “Insane”. “Crazy”. “Ridiculous”.

            I am a victim of circumstance. 19^th century Philippines – a time when the Spanish friars in the Philippines held considerable power, forming what was called a friarocracy. They conducted many functions of government even on the local level, controlled education at all levels, and were the largest landholders. Being the ruling class, they control the superstructure – the ideologies, the norms, the complex of social, legal, and political institutions that are all reflections of the type of ruling class operating in the society: the friars. Everything has to be in accordance with the Church, and the Spanish government.

            Nineteenth century Philippines – a time when faith and education seem to be two irreconcilable, contradictory notions. Dualism. And the problem with dualism is that one concept gets elevated, another concept is ‘othered’. In this case, faith and religion were seen as standard, appropriate, accepted. On the other hand, education and more importantly, knowledge, were conceived as non-orthodox, nonconformist, heretical.

            Considering the era, my exceptional intelligence was in fact a disadvantage. In a time when only a few were leaning towards the acceptance of knowledge over faith, I was labeled as ‘crazy’. My ideas were rejected by many simply because they were far too advanced for my generation. That is why I wrote my books in such a way that they won’t be deciphered by the kind of society I am in right now. My books were all aimed for the intelligent readers of the future. * I am a man ahead of my time, the same as Galileo and all the other scientists and philosophers across history who were all dubbed as ‘lunatics’ for the sole reason that their thinking was against convention.

For one, Galileo’s findings were not accepted at first. His belief that the Earth is moving was deemed heretical. Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine instructed Galileo that he must no longer hold or defend the concept that the earth moves. And since the full publication of Galileo’s trial documents in the 1870s, entire responsibility for Galileo’s condemnation has been placed on the Roman Catholic Church, linking Galileo’s science with heresy and unorthodoxy.

I am an epitome of a philosopher, and just as many other philosophers, my behavior was seen as deviation from the norms set by the society. We were not accepted by the society for our behaviors were, well, ‘uncustomary’ basing on their standards. For them, no person in the right frame of mind would abandon his riches, and then isolate himself from the society. For them, no person in the right frame of mind would challenge the Church and its teachings through the books that he got himself engrossed with.

Which leads me to the accurate definition of being ‘crazy’. One definition of mental illness is ‘a statistical deviation from behavioral norms’. This is in itself limited and inaccurate. A statistical range defines ‘normality’, and those falling out of that range are identified as ‘abnormal’. In other words, what people usually do is considered ‘normal’ and therefore, ‘healthy’. Thus, people who are called “mentally-ill” are those who break rules of social appropriateness, whatever that is, and do not act in accordance with social conventions.

But first, what is the standard for tolerated deviation? And at what point does the behavior change form ‘normal’ to a ‘deviation’?

I just wonder, why does it seem that there are many people with high academic attainment who have severe mental health problems, while many with low levels of education are somewhat free from ‘psychological problems’? Does being extremely brilliant equate to being abnormal? And in this case, does being extremely brilliant equate to being “crazy”?

If we conceptualize being crazy as a deviation from the dominant cultural standards of the society, then mental health is equated with conformity. And I refuse to accept that. In the first place, there is no reason to believe that all deviances are bad. Not all deviant behavior is, of course, mental illness; the latter is a subset of the former. The line separating the two, however, is vague and permeable.

I am a victim of circumstance. Yes, I was labeled ‘crazy’ because of what they call ‘deviation’, but my being ‘deviant’ stands for my social commentary. I represented all the other Filipinos who were dubbed as ‘insane’ because of our firm antagonism to social hypocrisy and colonial mentality.

The film The Crime of Padre Amaro tells of a young priest – fresh out of the seminary, seemingly idealistic, and was ready to devote his life to God – only that he was then confronted with real-world choices: that of temptation and corruption.

Father Benito’s receiving of financial help from the region’s drug lord for the construction of a new health clinic, with him claiming that reveal how difficult it is for any generation of priests to stick to their celibacy vows.

Natalio – who was excommunicated because he was suspected of assisting guerilla troops in the highlands. We see the ‘devout’ and ‘pious’ Amelia tempting the young priest. We see Father Amaro and Father Benito succumbing into hypocrisy to hide their own ‘immorality’. Paradoxes indeed.

I believe there was really ‘no crime of Padre Amaro’. Well, at one perspective, as in the title, that crime may be his swindling with the rules of the Church which leads him to his temptation, to the act of abortion, and then to the death of both his child and his lover. But I do not see it as a crime at all; Father Amaro was just victimized and persecuted by the rules he himself does not believe in, only that he was forced to conform and accept them for it was part of the convention.

This thus leads to the issue between nature and culture – of which the latter was seen as ‘higher’ than the other. When confronted by his temptation, Father Amaro reasoned out that ‘he is but a man’, and that speaks of his carnal needs – and that is something biological, something part of human nature.

Padre Amaro was indeed persecuted not with anything else, but by the rules of the convention. I believe that in the truest sense, no crime was done by the Father. Though passionate for the vocation he had chosen, Padre Amaro only took the vow of celibacy because he was required to. When he The Crime of Padre Amaro is a biting indictment of the hypocrisy and corruption that has plagued the Catholic Church even before. Hypocrisy in the sense that the Church and the people inside it had chosen to stick with the ‘image’ they had been living in pretense for hundreds of years.