MANILA, Philippines -- Activist Catholic priest Robert Reyes reminded the public and the church on Friday that the real issue in the Cebu rectal surgery scandal is medical malpractice, not gay sex.
"The issue is medical malpractice and the violation of a person's right to dignity and privacy,'' Reyes, known as the “running priest” because he runs not only as exercise but to attract attention to various causes for jogging to highlight his position on issues, said in an e-mailed statement.
Reyes, now working for the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, said focusing on the angle of gay sex in the case is a diversion from the real issue.
"Focusing on gay sex detracts from the issue and punishes and embarrasses the victim instead of the real culprits, the medical personnel who performed the operation on `Danilo' [not the patient’s real name]," he said.
The case involves the posting on the Internet of unauthorized video footage of rectal surgery being performed on a patient at the government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu City.
The video showed doctors, nurses and other medical workers jeering and laughing as a perfume canister was removed from the rectum of a man who had admitted the object was inserted during a drunken sexual encounter with a male partner last New Year’s Eve.
Monsignor Achilles Dakay, spokesperson of the archdiocese of Cebu, said on Wednesday that the main issue in the scandal was gay sex.
The gay community raised a howl and retorted that it was precisely such a low regard for gays and church teaching that gay sex is abnormal that reinforced discrimination against them.
Reyes said that turning an "extremely sensitive" operation into "cheap entertainment" bordered on the criminal.
"The role of the medical personnel was to perform their sworn and sacred promise to promote and preserve health. Turning an otherwise extremely sensitive and private situation into cheap entertainment is more than travesty. Indeed it is criminal," he said.
"Whether gay or straight, a person has the right to seek legal remedies when their rights are violated," he added.
