[Pastilan] When a congressman’s ‘thought crime’ goes public

How splendidly does Quezon City Representative Jesus “Bong” Suntay embody the persistent, unrepentant absurdity of many of our male politicians. He shows a mix of old-fashioned prudishness and bold entitlement, acting as if merely imagining something improper, and saying it out loud for everyone to hear, puts him above criticism.

The philosophical observation that “thought crimes” are, in truth, non-crimes, is beyond dispute. I agree – Suntay cannot be brought to court for the things he imagines fantasizing about and does inside the bathroom. Everyone has thoughts they wouldn’t say out loud, from small anger to personal fantasies. That’s normal. That’s human.

But normal thoughts don’t give anyone the license to parade the most intimate and grotesque imaginings in public fora, particularly not in Congress, or any chamber of governance for that matter, where words carry the weight of institutional authority.

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I get his point: Vice President Sara Duterte did not commit a crime by fantasizing about the macabre act of decapitating the President. She took to social media to reveal that she had made an assassin promise to her that the first couple would be killed if anything untoward happened to her. Suntay seems to mistake non-consummation for harmlessness as if it were not a death threat, which, last time I checked, is punishable under our laws.

Suntay’s mistake lay not in the point he sought to hammer home, but in his choice of analogy. To weaponize private, salacious fantasies as a public statement, especially in Congress, is a striking example of what the French call bêtise, a kind of absurd, thoughtless, and socially tone-deaf stupidity.

Unwritten code

Civilization, as fragile as it is, depends upon the careful management of speech and restraint of thought. To flout this unwritten code in front of colleagues, and worse, at the expense of a woman entirely unconnected to the proceedings, is the very definition of bastos. A congressman may claim immunity from legal censure, yet ethics is neither reducible to legality nor to mere absence of crime.

Suntay’s defensive insistence that there was nothing illegal or immoral about what he said only showed the deeper problem. Morality is not confined to codified law. It encompasses decency, dignity, and respect for others, standards that demand recognition even in the absence of legal enforcement. Yet this congressman from Quezon City treated these obligations with the casual irreverence of a child knocking down a sandcastle.

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Had he wished to make a point, analogies grounded in personal lapses – perhaps the fantasy to divert public funds meant for infrastructure projects to his vault – would have been relevant, honest, and self-reflective. 

Why not say, “I imagined diverting to my pocket more than half of the budget allocated for a flood control project in Quezon City, but – cross my heart and hope to die – I did not act on it, and therefore no crime was committed”? 

Many in the audience would probably have laughed themselves silly, imagining that Suntay was lying through his teeth, yet, naturally, that – that they merely imagined it – is no crime.

Or, he might have said: “I imagined a vote-buying scheme in Quezon City, where each voter would be asked to bring in eight more in exchange for cash. Naturally, I did not act on it, so no law was broken.” Perhaps, it would have been far less offensive to Curtis than turning the innocent bystander into the object of his private fantasy that was made public. 

Such a choice reflects a profound misunderstanding of the basic principles of respect, consent, and ethical responsibility. Suntay’s actions expose a deeper dysfunction within a government institution still dominated by what Rappler reporter Dwight de Leon calls a boys’ club mentality – insensitive to public scrutiny, indifferent to ethical norms, and lacking mechanisms for meaningful self-regulation.

Weak ethics

This episode doesn’t look like an isolated lapse of judgment, but rather as a symptom of systemic weakness, in which personal indulgence is tolerated at the expense of professional responsibility and the public’s trust.

Empowering women should not be ceremonial. It requires action, restraint, and a refusal to treat public office as a confessional for puerile sexual fantasies. That Suntay cannot comprehend this, and indeed questions which word was “offensive,” indicates a chronic deficit of judgment endemic to some quarters of our legislature. 

Words matter, particularly when wielded by those entrusted with shaping national discourse and policy. A casual reduction of a woman to a sexual object communicates the persistent, systemic contempt for women that continues to poison institutions meant to serve the public.

There is no such thing as a “thought crime” – but there is such a thing as bastos. There is no law broken when sexual fantasies are kept in the mind, but there is something quite not right when misogyny is paraded with the confidence of a man who probably thinks the world owes him indulgence. 

Quezon City’s 4th District is represented by someone whose imagination is vivid, yet whose ethical compass is embarrassingly weak. The country deserves better, women deserve respect, and Congress deserves a mirror. 

If politicians like Suntay keep saying out loud the things they should just imagine privately, Congress will look like the world’s most dysfunctional group-therapy session, and the rest of the country gets front-row seats as it watches all this live. – Rappler.com