An Open Invitation

Here's a bit of cynicism for you: when a hapless commuter gets her cellphone snatched from her by some lowlife, the natural tendency of many people is, instead of sympathizing with her, to shake their heads and cluck "nag-ce-cellphone kasi sa jeep, eh." The trangression is less that of the thief who has clearly taken what doesn't belong to him and more that of the victim who left herself a little bit more open to the commission of the crime. It is downright wrong to think like this, of course; people shouldn't have to be afraid to use their cellphones, their own property, in public. It is not a crime to use one's cellphone wherever he or she wants, and at the end of the day the criminals are still the ones who run off with the phone. They aren't forces of nature; just pieces of crap. People shouldn't have to worry about these thugs swiping their things.

The reality, however, is sadly far, far removed from the ideal. In a land beset by poverty and erosion of basic human values, it's almost a given that crimes will occur under certain circumstances. It becomes a responsibility to safeguard one's self from such contingencies by taking certain measures, or by refraining from certain conduct.

Having said this, it strikes me that the girl who was allegedly raped by four United States Marines acted rather imprudently, to say the least. To say the worst, one could say that she could not have asked for it more if she had painted a bull's eye on her vagina.

This is not a discussion on whether or not the rape took place; that is for the trial court to determine, although frankly, I'm fairly sure they did it, especially considering they've already gone for the consensual sex defense, which places them in an uphill battle from this point onwards, considering the eyewitness accounts that had them dumping her in the side of the road in her underwear. Whether or not they did was entirely beside the point.

The point is that this girl opened herself to this kind of situation the way people who use their cellphones on a jeep in Tondo open themselves to snatchers. I wouldn't even be talking about this if I didn't think that there seems to be a disturbing trend among young people to throw caution to the wind when it comes to their night life.

I hardly consider myself a prude; I'm not about to protest anyone wearing short skirts or tube tops or any of that stuff, but I do think that people should know how to take care of themselves. I am a thirtysomething male, but there are still places that I wouldn't necessarily go alone, given the option.

I've actually seen a young, attractive girl go to a bar, get drunk out of her gourd, and proceed to cavort with a guy who, from all appearances, she had only just met at the bar. I've read about a rather asinine practice among young people known as "speed dating" where the object is to go out with as many people in a day/evening as possible, on the rationale that "if you don't get a boyfriend, at least you make 20 new friends." I guess that's possible, assuming they don't think the girl is a player, or, to use more vulgar language, a slut.

Dating rituals are not only charmingly quaint appurtenances to one's love/sex life; they serve as important filters or screening processes by which both men and women, boys and girls are able to determine if the people they're going out with are suitable for them. By not offering one's body to someone she's just met, a girl has a chance to unearth a lot of potentially material information about him, which is obviously an impossibility if she drops her panties because she likes his mojo, or because she's too drunk to care.

By all accounts, the Olongapo rape victim was supposed to be intelligent and well-educated, so one wonders what in God's name she was doing in a bar trying to pick up Americans in the first place. That's her business, really, but that doesn't mean she couldn't have been more careful in the company she chose. Judging by decades of Philippine-American relations, it's pretty easy to surmise what American servicemen hanging out at bars in Olongapo are looking for, so unless she spent her whole life living under a rock before heading out to that bar this girl had every reason to be on her guard.

The rape itself was heinous. The men involved undoubtedly deserve the maximum penalty if they did it, and I truly hope they get exactly what is coming to them. But one cannot deny that the girl they ravished had no reason to believe they had anything but the basest of intentions. She took the least possible amount of caution going into what was already a potentially dangerous situation, with disastrous results. This does not mean that she was not raped, just a cellphone snatched from someone using it in a jeep is still a stolen item no matter how careless its owner was. But there is an important lesson to be learned here about how cautious poeple should be, especially how today's increasingly hedonistic crowd seems to be pushing the boundaries of acceptable risks.

As someone whose daughter will one day be as old as that girl, I hope I am able to impress this upon her one day.