REACTION PAPER: “WALANG RAPE SA BONTOK”

Walang Rape Sa Bontok, they seek to understand and verify the findings of
anthropologist Dr. June Prill-Brett, whose studies have shown that for a long time, in the culture
of the Bontoc of the Philippine Cordilleras, there was no concept of rape. In such a society, rape
did not exist. In the communities therein, women are held in high social standing simply because
they are women, and the practices and beliefs that safeguard the Bontoc people’s egalitarian way
of doing things are rooted in what the village elders call “the old ways.”

In Bontoc, only the women are allowed to plant rice on the terraces, because they believe
that men’s hands cannot yield life. In case of inter-village wars, no rape can ever occur, because
when the enemy forces approach the women of the rival village, all that a woman has to do is to
raise her skirt and show her genitals, and the enemy will scamper away, because in their culture
this is a bad omen, and synonymous with death. Their notion is that no man can look at a
woman’s genitalia, that being the channel from whence he came into the world. The academics
also point out how extremely difficult life is, in these parts. They toil all day in the fields, and so
when they go back to their dwellings, both husband and wife are so bone tired that they just have
to sleep off their aching bodies.

At the turn of puberty, sisters and brothers are made to sleep separately, the girls in the
ologs, accommodating about eight lasses at a time. The atos are the sleeping quarters for the
males, and these can accommodate around 20 to 30 of them. Strict rules and discipline are
imposed in these sleeping cottages, so that no malice or hanky panky can happen. The Bontoc
people don’t put a premium on the concept of privacy either there are no locks on their homes,
and communities hold each other accountable, which means abuse, rape, and even just getting a
girl pregnant and backing out are things you can’t get away with. In times of war, women
warded off warriors from the other village by lifting their skirt and showing their genitalia,
cursing the warriors in that way. The village even has a night watch made entirely of women.

Through extremely thorough research, insightful interviews with village elders, and a
critical eye for the social moors that condition our behaviors, Walang Rape sa Bontok puts so
much of rape culture into perspective. In the process it effectively counterargues the notions of
those who dismiss rape culture as a concept. A lot might say that rape happens because women
wear revealing clothing. But what about the indigenous women who can go bare-chested while
still being treated by their community with dignity and respect?

Countless others might say it is simply in the nature of the human male to rape. Why is it
then that an entire indigenous community whose village elders have always, historically, been
male can go multiple generations without a single rape case?