Bomb joke

Poor Jasmin Sala, the long weekend has upturned her life for the worse.

After telling the security guard of an uptown mall that a bomb was inside her bag — “Naa ra ba ni bomba” — Sala was told by the mall’s head of security to go to their office where she was eventually turned over to the Cebu City police.

Sala insisted that it was a joke, that she said it in jest; but as explained in last Saturday’s front page story of Cebu Daily News, her joke wasn’t just bad timing, it was also against the law.

Presidential Decree 1727, or the Anti-Bomb Joke Law that was enacted in October 1980, declares as unlawful the malicious dissemination of false information and willful threat concerning bombs, explosives or any similar device, through word of mouth, use of mail, telephone, telegraph, printed materials and other means of communication.

Violators like Sala face five years in jail or a fine of P40,000 or both depending on the court’s ruling. Why she made the joke at a time when President Rodrigo Duterte declared a state of emergency due to lawlessness following the recent night market bombing in Davao City, only she can answer.

It’s not as if she was unaware of what happened in Davao City. That tragedy, along with the countless false alarms, hoaxes and text scares around the country, made Filipinos nervous so security personnel in the mall which she visited cannot be blamed for checking out her claim and then sending her to the police for investigation.

It’s not the first time someone made a bomb joke, and it certainly won’t be the last. Actor model John Estrada supposedly made a bomb joke while boarding a connecting flight from General Santos City to Manila, and he also faced charges.

But unlike Estrada who has fame and money to extricate himself from the mess he created for himself, Sala is a worker of the Mactan Export Processing Zone who is headed for work in Japan and had just had her photos taken for her application when she was sent to the police.

It remains to be seen if the company she applied for work in Japan would still accept her now that she is facing charges — chances are quite slim for anyone facing jail time — but one cannot certainly doubt that Sala’s stunt will cost her dearly in terms of her employment background.

At a time when the perpetrators of the Davao City night market bombing remain scot-free and people with nothing else better to do seek out publicity and notoriety by making false bomb scares through text or social media posts, it boggles the mind to see someone like Jasmin Sala, a single mother with two children to support, risks everything for a throwaway bomb joke.

Even if she does get off, her reputation will precede her badly. We can only hope other people learn from this grievous mistake and not joke about bombs or any other potential threat to public safety.