Who’s to blame?

It was around 3:30 in the afternoon when I headed to the jeepney terminal in Eton Centris on my way to the University of the Philippines Diliman. I had with me a suitcase, a backpack, and a small plastic bag filled with groceries. As I boarded the jeep, two men helped me move my stuff along the small space toward the innermost part of the jeepney. I was able to sit somewhere in the middle, and after a few minutes the jeepney was on its way.

Most, if not all, jeepneys plying the MRT-UP Diliman route are fitted with this long string that signals the driver when a passenger wishes to disembark. They have a sign posted near the front end of the vehicle saying that a tug at the string would prompt the driver to pull over at the proper unloading area (“Hila mo, Hinto ko sa tamang babaan”). We had just turned toward Quezon Avenue when, just before the intersection, someone pulled the string, which made the driver stop the jeepney. After that, everything happened in a blur.

As luck would have it, the stoplight just turned red, and the next thing I knew there was a knife (which I would later learn was a balisong) in front of my face. Fortunately for me, but not for the girl sitting beside me, the weapon wasn’t directed at me but at her. She had on her earphones, which were connected to the smartphone she was holding.

The holdup man demanded that she give it to him. “Akin na yan!”

She hedged, saying she needed it to reach her folks later. “Kuya, huwag na po. Kailangan ko pa pong i-contact yung parents ko mamaya.”

He said he’d kill her if she didn’t hand it over. “Ibigay mo sa ‘kin yan. Kung hindi, papatayin kita!”

When I heard that last part I panicked, especially because the balisong was just inches from my face. The girl had no choice but to surrender her phone, and the man, together with an accomplice whom I didn’t notice until then, got off and walked away. And we passengers sat, shocked at what had just happened.

When we regained our composure and the jeepney finally crossed the intersection we had stopped at, some of the other passengers assessed the damage. The man seated nearest the entrance lost the phone he was holding, the woman seated between the two holdup men also lost her phone (and the G-shock watch she was wearing), as did the girl seated beside me. They had one thing in common: They had their phones on display. I would have suffered the same fate—in a public vehicle, often I’d be holding my phone, texting any of my friends—but luckily, I wasn’t able to fish out my phone from my pocket because of the cramped space in the jeepney.

Conversations started to pile one on top of another around me, but there was a recurring theme of blame in them, mostly directed at the girl beside me who had chosen to listen to music using her phone while in the jeepney. No matter what point they started on, they all ended up telling her, “You shouldn’t have been using your phone and putting it out on display in a public place.” This really struck a nerve in me.

It is extremely saddening that we live in a society that, more often than not, blames the victim over the perpetrator of the crime. Just how fast did we shift from blaming the phone thieves to admonishing this girl, this victim, whom the holdup men had sought despite being seated more than halfway through the jeepney from them, for unconsciously presenting more temptation? Just how long did we wait until the warnings, like not displaying gadgets or wearing jewelry or bringing out any item that may be the least bit interesting and/or expensive, started rolling out, instead of doing anything to catch the perpetrators? Just how many times did the other passengers look reprovingly toward this girl who was whiling away the minutes listening to a couple of songs in this short jeepney ride?

This isn’t the only case where people chose to chide the victim for the crime that happened to her/him. Time and time again, we see people chastising theft victims for showing off their stuff that caught the criminals’ eyes, or akyat-bahay victims for not locking up their house sufficiently to ward off burglars, or rape victims for wearing clothing that supposedly invite attack. We see this victim-blaming culture not only in our country but everywhere else in the world, yet we do nothing to change it.

How many more attacks will happen before people finally understand that it is not the victims’ fault? How many more robberies will we experience before we stop blaming those who didn’t lock their places enough? How many more times will we suffer all these crimes before finally understanding that it is not the victims’ fault, that no one was, as many so often put it, asking for whatever crime was done to them?

I don’t want to keep on living in a world that berates people for having the misfortune of being at the receiving end of a crime. I don’t want to keep on living in a world that denies victims of their innocence, and puts the blame on them for the things over which they have no control. I don’t want to live my whole life afraid of the things people might do to me just because I happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t want to go on with my life like a fool, spending every second scared to be the next victim of a heinous crime. And that certainly wouldn’t be the life I would want for my future children.

I was lucky on that day. Due to the circumstances, I did not lose anything. My phone was deep inside my pocket, and the rest of my valuables were tucked in the innermost parts of my bags. If it were any other day, I would have been holding my phone and my wallet, and I would have arrived in UP without them. What if that were the case? What if, sometime in the future, I would make that small mistake of holding these things out in the open? Would I always have to endure the rest of the ride afraid for my safety, when it shouldn’t have to be compromised in the first place?

Camille Obrero, 18, is a sophomore majoring in statistics at the University of the Philippines Diliman.