Irene Sarmiento
WELCOME TO THE #METOO PHILIPPINES SERIES hosted by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and her publishing house PALH. The writer Nikko Miguel Garcia explains the background of how this #MeToo Philippines Series came about. Please click here.
The #METOO PHILIPPINES SERIES has the purpose of educating and raising consciousness about sexual harassment and abuse and injustice in the Philippines. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials.
Here is Irene Sarmiento with her personal essay: "The Great Philippine Literary Boys' Club."
BIO: IRENE SARMIENTO is the first Filipino author to be invited to the White Ravens Festival, which is held in Munich and celebrates excellence in international children’s and youth literature.
She wrote Stray Cats, published by Ateneo de Manila University Press (2023). This work of young adult literature highlights the heroism of girls growing up in Manila, where economic inequity and human exploitation form the undercurrents of everyday life. Stray Cats has received glowing reviews and was one of the Kids’ Choice winners at the 8th National Children’s Book Awards.
Irene has also published two illustrated children’s books with Anvil. Her award-winning Tabon Girl (2012) discusses gender roles and expectations through concepts in archaeology and Philippine history. Her short stories have received accolades from The Palanca Memorial Foundation, Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, and Stories to Change the World. She has contributed opinion pieces to Rappler about issues concerning migration, race, and healthcare, which are a blend of personal histories, research, and analyses of current events. These are based on her experiences as an occupational therapist and former Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW).
Look for it in Shopee and Lazada
***
THE GREAT PHILIPPINE LITERARY BOYS' CLUB
by
IRENE SARMIENTO
Copyright 2026 by Irene Sarmiento, All Rights Reserved
A bingo card no one asked for
Scrolling through my Facebook feed on the night of July 8, 2026, I spotted a two-day-old post from the nationally renowned author Alfred “Krip” Yuson, depicting an AI-generated image of Emma Watson in a white bikini and high heels. Yuson captioned it, “Bellingham, Kane, and Emma Watson of England beat the Burritos, 3-2.”
It was apparently a World Cup update, and by “Burritos,” the esteemed Filipino writer meant Mexicans.
Gross.
I found a bingo card no one asked for: a cultural elder speaking his truth in the form of a sports reference, generative AI slop, a successful young woman being objectified, and… (drumroll please) a racist joke.
As if things couldn’t get any crasser, broadcast journalist Howie Severino commented, “What position did she play?” to which Yuson replied, “They parked the defensive bus behind her. Then she flew on the Quidditch broomstick until she caught the Golden Snitch on extra time. [smiley face]”
The Safe Spaces Act (Republic Act No. 11313), a.k.a. the Bawal Bastos Law, penalizes uploading or sharing media that contains sexual content without consent. The only reason Yuson’s post might not fully qualify as sexual harassment is that Emma Watson hasn’t seen it, and therefore, can’t file a complaint. Given her status as a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, it’s likely that Watson would not be okay with the publication of her AI-generated half-naked likeness, along with comments degrading her in a fictitious sport played by a character she portrayed as a child.
Since no one pointed out what to me was Gender-Based Online Sexual Harassment (GBOSH), or at the very least bastos, I decided to say something.
“Ahhh, ganito nga pala pinag-uusapan ng mga men about women (Ahhh, this is what men say about women)—including women generated by AI without their clothes or consent,” I typed.
I’ll admit, even though it was a small act, it wasn’t easy for me. Worried about getting dogpiled by Yuson and his friends in high places, I took screenshots to protect myself from potential backlash.
But no one noticed and nothing happened. Not yet.
The exploding comments section
Almost two months later, Exploding Galaxies—a press founded by Mara Coson, granddaughter of tycoon Henry Sy—announced in late August of 2026 that they were republishing Yuson’s novel, The Great Philippine Jungle Energy Café. Soon after, young women went online to protest the decision, alleging sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior from Yuson. One of the more vocal critics was feminist writer and independent bookstore owner, Katrina Stuart Santiago.
I wasn’t surprised at all by the claims, especially since just a few weeks earlier, I tried to call out Yuson directly for his online lechery. I also had my own unwelcoming experiences around men in the Philippine literary community. After seeing these complaints, Exploding Galaxies released another statement, saying they were still going through with rereleasing Yuson’s novel, dismissing the allegations as unsubstantiated and motivated by Santiago’s personal grudge against the author.
People were quick to spot the blatant gaslighting. Though Santiago was clear that she didn’t think it was right to expose a new generation of young women readers to Yuson by way of re-platforming his work, there were many apologists who called the claims hearsay and made the argument for separating the art from the artist. I read the heated exchanges between those who believed the women and those who demanded “proof” and that the victims come forward with their allegations. It was egregious. The callous attitude towards sexual harassment and abuse was just one reason why some victims are compelled to remain in the shadows.
I felt the rage and sadness come flooding back, along with memories of how things went when I reported my early experiences of sexual harassment.
A child in a man’s world
My first time reporting sexual harassment was as bad as the harassment itself. I was around 12. We had photos of our class, showing us kids at work, posted outside our classroom door. Someone had vandalized my picture with a text bubble that said, “kantutin mo ko” (f--k me). While my classmates went out for P.E., I cried in the classroom. The teacher told me I was overreacting.
After I hit puberty at around 14, there was a shift in the way men behaved around me. If I passed by a group of men, I’d sometimes notice them watching me, making me feel unsafe. I spoke to a family member who said, “pa-sexy ka kasi (because you’re making yourself sexy).” At 15, the boys in my class would make pained moans, look at me, snicker and talk among themselves. I later found out they were mimicking how they assumed I sounded if I were being raped.
All these instances were reported. Many were even witnessed. I heard the usual from the adults around me: boys will be boys; it’s not like they’re really raping you; just ignore them; how are you even sure they were talking about you?
One night, I saw a Seinfeld episode in which Jerry and George sneak peeks at a 15-year-old girl’s cleavage, and that’s when I realized what it meant to live in a man’s world: a girl can’t even reach into her bag without getting leered at.
It felt back then, as it often does now, that I was on the losing side of a game I was forced into. I knew that for the boys in class, sexually harassing me was a show of power to one another, a form of male bonding. But there was also a reason why the girls didn’t want to get involved. While I was the target of the boys’ jokes and bullying, everyone else could be safe from having to occupy a space I was already in. I thought of what it must have been like in the position of my teachers, who I approached but did nothing. Choosing the boys will be boys narrative wasn’t only a failure of imagination on their part, it meant they could normalize sexual harassment and wash their hands of any responsibility to help me.
Manananggal
I went to a progressive high school, and though the sexual harassment I experienced was poorly handled, I made the most of my situation by self-isolating in the school library—a small room with a limited selection of books. I was an independent learner, so whenever I finished my class work early, I would read YA and speculative fiction to fill the time.
I became obsessed with short, concept-driven sci-fi stories. These books offered more than escapist fantasies from what I was going through. Works by Ursula K. Le Guin, Ray Bradbury, Nancy Kress, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., often examined past and present societal problems, leading to moral reckoning in bonkers imagined futures, distant planets, and alternate universes. Once I read most of what suited my taste from the school library shelves, I went to secondhand bookshops, treasure hunting for sci-fi anthologies, novels, and magazines. I got a hit of satisfaction whenever I encountered dusty back issues of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Asimov’s Science Fiction, as well as collections of Nebula and Hugo Award winners, buried in the racks of Booksale.
Then I began writing my own pieces. My mother, who was my first reader and editor, recommended that I submit my work to Greg Brillantes, literary editor at the Philippines Graphic. This was where my speculative fiction story, “Dark Side of Eden,” came out. I was a junior in high school. I also wrote other pieces, which looking back, were corny, predictable, and fortunately rejected for publication.
Though I was interested in taking up journalism, creative writing, or entomology in college, my mom convinced me that I would have better prospects if I trained for something that was in demand abroad, so I studied occupational therapy. I ended up loving OT to the point that I graduated with honors and topped the board exams. It helped that I was surrounded by people who wanted to do right by others, and I found internal rewards in being skilled and service oriented. Though the curriculum was very busy, demanding long nights of studying for written and practical exams, I still found time to write and publish stories during breaks from school.
In 2002, while I was in college, I saw that the grand prize winners of the Palanca Awards were featured in the Sunday edition of one of the national newspapers. As I read the awardee profiles, I learned there was a recently established Futuristic Fiction category. I believed that if I kept practicing both writing and recognizing the patterns of what made an excellent short story, I could win a Palanca in this division. I started visualizing myself as one of the awardees featured in the Sunday paper. Since I didn’t have a writing community other than my mom and Mr. Brillantes, winning one of the most sought-after literary prizes in the country seemed like a way I could enter the field.
Two years later, when I was 20 years-old, my short story, “Manananggal” (Self-segmenter), about the moral contradictions of sexual awakening, won 2nd place in the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. At the awards’ night, there was a man giving me unwanted attention. My editor, Paolo Manalo, pulled me away from the situation somehow. I remember still feeling bothered on the car ride home. The next day, Paolo called to check on me. He even told my mother to keep me away from the aggressive man from last night. That moment is still significant for me because though Paolo wasn’t the first person to witness me getting sexually harassed, he was the first to respond to my distress. He acknowledged that the hostility wasn’t “all in my head” and proved that bystanders could be active in stopping something wrong.
Literary outsider
While I was in my fourth year in occupational therapy, I received a letter—I won first place in the Palanca Awards Futuristic Fiction category for my short story, “They Don’t Bite.” I was ecstatic. Since I was in the middle of a community-based internship in Montalban, my college excused me from clinical duties so I could prepare for and attend the Palanca ceremony. At the awarding, another first placer told me that his winning story had been workshopped by one of the Palanca judges. He called me an “outsider” and shared anecdotes about certain young writers being claimed as “mga bata” (protégés) of more senior writers. This guy also said that before the results of the Palanca Awards had been released, the word on the street was that a more established fictionist had won in my category.
I got a solid sense of how much of an outsider I was when the journalist from the newspaper that featured the Palanca grand prize winners told me that I was not going to be photographed or featured, but that they would still have my name among the list of awardees. The reason he gave me was that no one had won in the Filipino division of the Futuristic Fiction category, and that his publication wanted the winners in each division to appear side by side. He essentially said that they had reserved space for two people, but since I was the only one who showed up, they decided to leave me out. Before he left me my table, he quickly turned around to face me and said, “Maybe next time, you’ll win again.”
The interaction felt mean-spirited. Unlike the awardee who told me his work was known to at least one of the judges, I passed blind review; yet why was I being treated like I didn’t deserve to be there? I wondered, had I been a man or an “insider,” would the journalist have talked down to me? If I were someone’s bata, would I have been included among the featured awardees?
Also, I did win again a few years later, and by that time the newspaper had stopped publishing features on Palanca winners.
Kids’ stuff
After graduating from occupational therapy in 2005, I taught at my alma mater and worked at several pediatric clinics. I published a children’s book, Spinning (2009, Anvil), about a boy with autism. In 2010, my piece, “Tabon Girl,” which explores archeology, Philippine prehistory, and gender norms, won the grand prize in the Palanca Awards Short Story for Children category. This second go around, I was in my mid-20s and had people I trusted in the literary community, namely Karina Bolasco and Gwenn Galvez, both with Anvil at the time.
I attended the awards night with my then-boyfriend. One of the Palanca judges, who was an influential author, got my email address so he could send me photos from the ceremony. He wrote to me the next day and described me as “lovable,” adding “Pardon an old man hittin’ on u, jeje.”
I had heard that this venerated author had helped other early-career writers get published, and that I needed to tread lightly around him given his power. Though the man’s manner came off as inappropriate, in response, I managed to steer the correspondence to a friendlier and more normal tone. But this took work on my part—I was careful not to alienate him or hurt his feelings, even though it wasn’t a position I wanted to be in, and he obviously didn’t care about how I might have felt.
What position did she play?
Fast forward to early September of 2026 and the controversy that would be known as “Junglegate,” I decided to repost the screenshots I had of Krip Yuson’s AI-generated bikini clad Emma Watson on my social media pages. I figured, if Yuson didn’t have any qualms about sharing it publicly, unprompted, then there shouldn’t be any objection to my resposting it. I did it because I saw all these young netizens being gaslit and talked over, mostly by men, after raising their concerns about re-platforming Yuson, given allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior. Writers, Gian Lao and Margueritte Alcazaren De Leon, also publicly talked about their experiences of sexual harassment and grooming in the Philippine literary scene. Days later, Exploding Galaxies announced it would not be re-releasing Yuson’s book.
One can only speculate whether my re-sharing Yuson’s open lechery had something to do with the publisher’s decision. For all I know, they might not have even seen it. Some called Yuson’s Facebook post “locker room talk,” which to me is just a euphemism for how men participate in rape culture in the form of demeaning jokes, often featuring veiled violence against women.
The whole episode opened a psychological can of worms for me. It was disappointing how established Filipino writers had the opportunity to challenge and amend the power imbalances and misogyny in the literary scene, yet they stayed silent.
I thought about the comment pertaining to the AI-generated Emma Watson, “What position did she play?”
Well, based on the photo Yuson had of her—not a position she agreed to.
But what position do these men play?
They could speak for themselves, but since they’ve willfully ignored the issue, I’ve come up with a few answers.
It’s the position where they can comfortably say that they won’t believe victims’ claims of sexual harassment, abuse, or assault—unless the victims themselves come forward and present evidence—because their empathy in not with the victims.
It’s the position where they can publicly make degrading remarks about women and shut out whoever holds them accountable because they can count on the patriarchy to protect them.
It’s the position where they can easily do their part to make the world safer and kinder for women and girls, but time and time again, they choose not to because why would they put in the work to take down a system that clearly benefits them?
It’s the position where they simply cannot be bothered.
~end~
Read also:
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#MeTooMovement
#hijaako
#respetonaman
#donttellmehowtodress
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