Panopticon Theory

PART I

            “I am a victim everyday”-Katrina Halili. How true is it that we are victims in our daily lives? Victims in terms of what, how do we defend ourselves in such scenarios that will pilot to this conclusion? Are we aware that we are victims as well?

            After the public laid eyes on the sex video scandal of Katrina Halili and Hayden Kho, different speculations came up from different people’s perspective. Others said that Hayden Kho should be condemned for this scandal because of his malicious acts while for the others Hayden is a victim as well. Since day one of this issue all the different mediums of media gives us an update to the issue itself and follow up leads for the investigation for this huge outrageous sex scandal. Hayden Kho said that without his knowledge and consent, the video recordings were uploaded on the Internet, downloaded, reproduced in DVD form, distributed and sold to the public. (Araneta, 2009). Diverse commentaries are made after Hayden said this statement meanwhile a representative from the senate namely Senator Bong Revilla branded Hayden Kho as a “pervert” and slammed Hayden for his behavior through his speech untitled “A Doctor’s Perversity”. Some commented that Senator Revilla is just using this issue to collect more respect as a candidate for the next election. As proven by Ables (1987), the media have been used to catapult personalities into public consciousness, an opportunity that has been exploited by these personalities for political gain. Right after this, Katrina went to the Senate and filed a case against Hayden. Court hearings have been made. Different angles of the issue came up such that the religious leaders and associations declared that they will be with Katrina with this fight. As Bishop Teodoro Bacani said “Even if they were consenting adults it does not mean that they should announce to the world what they did. I do not know what legal recourse can be done but this was really extreme. It really demeaned people and reduced them to the level of objects”. (Araneta, 2009). There were some unexpected issues branched out from the Hayden Kho- Katrina Halili sex scandal but one of the highlight during this issue is when a man bathes Hayden with his own bottled water during one of their court hearings. According to that man, he cannot tolerate the immoral acts of Hayden and disgust him with the kind of mentality he has with this particular issue because he video recorded almost all of his private affairs with different women and kept them as his collections. The sex scandal itself is a big hit to the audiences because they patronized such issues and for them it is entertaining. With the expected large audience share, the media crossed over their boundaries as the guardians of public morals. They allowed the obscene material to be discussed in the public and they are the one who is responsible in feeding the information to the audiences. They used this issue to earn more profit and let the respective TV and radio stations as well as the publications to get richer.

REFERENCES:

• Araneta, S. (2009, May 23). “Hayden says sorry for sex videos”. The Philippine Star. p. 8
• Ables , H. (1987). Mass Communication and Philippine Society. Manila, Philippines: University of the Philippines Press.
• Araneta, S. (2009, May 22). “Kho, Bello summoned over Katrina sex video”. The Philippine Star. p. 10
• Calica, A. (2009, May 20). “Hayden gets senator’s ire over sex video”. The Philippine Star. p. 9
• Araneta, S. (2009, May 21). “Katrina goes to Senate, NBI”. The Philippine Star. p. 6