Thursday, April 03, 2008 Seares: 'Your phone or your life' By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
IT used to be "Your money or your life," said aloud or whispered with gun pointed at victim's head.
No more. Not in this part of the world. Now it's "Your phone or your life."
Murders of a nursing graduate, a call center agent, and a basketball player in recent weeks cast glaring light on an ugly facet of Cebu's peace and order---and people being mobile-phone crazy.
Fatal violence escalates the crime, from simple thievery and snatching to robbery with murder. Would criminals kill for a phone now? They would and they have.
Cell phone has become magnet for crime. Cops tell us why: useful gadget, almost as good as cash, and easy to "fence."
Not so much its usefulness, though the cell phone is indeed useful. (What swifter, safer way of passing an illicit note of love or commerce or a signal to start a bank holdup or a revolution?) But it's affection for and addiction to the phone that makes it hot in the market, cool to users, and robbers' prize target.
Status symbol
One doesn't leave the house without wallet and phone, not always in that order. Some people think it is major tool "to connect," believing they communicate better by text than face-to-face talk. Others swear they prefer driving without license or money to driving without that phone.
It is status symbol, in their respective styles and levels, of executives, yuppies, matrons, pimps, and housemaids. Some men would rather be caught dead with padded crotch than with cheap phone.
But guess what? The police just have to deal with the crime surge and to stop blaming the mobile-phone mania for the robbery-murders.
