Friday, March 16, 2007 Roperos: Moral downslide By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
IT happened in a barangay about four kilometers from the heart of Balamban. The barangay has a history, sort of, during World War II.
There is a hill that used to be a wooded area and was used by guerillas waiting in ambush for a convoy of Japanese soldiers. On the west side of the road were the school and the church.
Behind that school last Sunday, a group of eight boys reportedly molested a girl. The girl was a 13-year-old grade six pupil and the boys were mostly her classmates.
The report that Bobby Nalzaro, Ed Barrita and I gathered Sunday afternoon was disheartening, if not disgusting. It seems that a fraternity chapter organized in the barangay recruited the girl, an orphan living with an aunt.
During the initiation, she was brought to a place behind the Abucayan Elementary School. She was reportedly asked which she would prefer, pain or pleasure (mahirap or masarap)? The boys said she chose the latter.
That was how she was “molested” allegedly by three of the eight boys whose ages range from 12 to 19. The 12-year-old was later sent home reportedly for being just an innocent observer. The 19-year-old allegedly refused to participate.
We saw the kids at the municipal jail sprawled on the narrow floor. No cell could accommodate all of them.
Bobby and Ed just happened to be visiting me in my hometown. After lunch, they lingered for a while to see the reclaimed part of the sea that was converted into a park and an athletic track-and-field oval.
Then we were told about a gang “rape” incident and the perpetrators were detained in jail. And so we went.
The innocent faces of the perpetrators were obvious, and they appeared to us like innocents let loose in the woods and unable to know what they should do in the face of a dilemma that emerged from an act they may have hardly understood.
But what came to my mind was the thought that whatever may have impelled them to do what they did was something that came from their environment, from talks of indiscreet elders, and the visual and broadcast media.
That there is need for their concerned elders to do something about their training, moral orientation and social motivation is obvious. And that school guidance is pretty much wanting, is glaring enough to arouse more serious questions among our school officials.
What should be done to arrest this moral downslide?
