ONE Tulfo is in the hot seat for one word that has galvanized a minority community.
On a larger lens, when national politics is in the fray, our language becomes a kind of weapon.
We see it in the speed of online arguments, the impatience in talk shows, the quickness to assign blame and the temptation to win by humiliation rather than by reason. Social media further deepens divides, turning seconds into humiliation for the accused. In this atmosphere, faith is often dragged into the mud, not as a guide for conscience, but as a label to pin on people.
This is where we must remember what prophets are for.
In the Islamic tradition, prophets were not sent to build personality cults or justify factional battles. They were sent to correct the human heart: to teach restraint, justice, mercy and accountability. They spoke truth to power, yes, but they also spoke truth to ego. They reminded societies that the strongest people are not those who can dominate a debate, but those who can govern their tongue, honor the dignity of others and be fair even when emotions run hot.
Ramadan intensifies this lesson. It trains the body through hunger, but it trains the soul through discipline. It asks us to pause before we speak, and to ask whether our words will heal or harm.
Yet, precisely at a time when restraint should be easiest to understand, a different habit surfaced in public discourse: the casual use of religious identity as an “identifier” in criminal reporting. In recent days, a veteran media personality posted online describing suspects in a crime by attaching the word “Muslim” — as if religion were a meaningful clue to wrongdoing.
Leaders and public officials from Mindanao pushed back, warning that this kind of language does more than offend; it reinforces prejudice and can place ordinary Muslim Filipinos — students, workers, mothers, commuters — under suspicion they did not earn. The reminder was simple: Criminal liability is personal. Faith is not a crime.
This is not about shielding criminals. It is about protecting the innocent majority from collateral harm.
In a country where discrimination has long trailed Muslim communities — through stereotypes, profiling and even bullying in schools — words can become accelerants. When an entire faith is casually pulled into a crime story, the impact is felt by people who have nothing to do with it: the hijabi student on a jeepney, the Maranao trader in a market, the Tausug worker applying for a job, the Maguindanaon family trying to keep their children safe.
Our media codes and ethical standards already recognize this risk: Race, religion and ethnicity should not be used in ways that denigrate or stereotype, especially when irrelevant to understanding the facts. The same is true in our moral traditions. The Quran warns against ridicule and offensive labeling, and it reminds believers not to let anger bend them away from justice. These are not abstract teachings; they are guardrails for public life.
If we want a politics worthy of our prophets, we must refuse two temptations.
The first is the temptation to weaponize faith — turning religion into a marker of suspicion. The second is the temptation to respond with equal cruelty — turning correction into harassment.
We can demand better standards and still choose better manners.
A public apology, if warranted, is not humiliation. It is accountability. And accountability is not weakness; it is strength. This is what the prophets taught, and what Ramadan renews: the courage to do right even when pride resists.
In times of national noise, let us return to the quiet discipline that makes a nation livable — fair speech, careful reporting and a politics that serves people instead of labels.