Viral video scandal: Lessons to students; challenges to society

Once again, there is another scandal that involves minor students that goes viral on social media. The 31-second video shows the four young men molesting a female student who appears to be unconscious.

Scrutinizing further the viral video, it appears that there are 4 young men and 2 young women on board a 4-wheel vehicle. One woman is unconscious while the other one is conscious.

I observed in the viral video that those young people inside the vehicle were all under the influence of liquor, if not illegal drugs. While the unconscious girl was molested by her own friends inside the car, the other girl who was conscious did not do anything to stop his male friends. They were all laughing inside while they took video of the incident.

Because the video was uploaded through the internet, it went viral. As a result, it was found out that those students involved are from the University of Cebu (UC) and South Western University (SWU). Both schools conducted their respective investigations and promised not to condone the above-mentioned act. 

I would like to commend the two institutions for taking actions on the incident. But that would only touch the administrative aspect of the case. Parents of the unconscious girl are still encouraged to cooperate with the authorities so that the proper criminal case will be filed in the regular court of justice. 

May this incident once again call for a meditation to all sectors of the society. Parents, teachers, priests, pastors and students should do their part to avoid the same incident in the future.

For parents, being the first teacher, they should not get tired of guiding and monitoring the whereabouts and activities of their children.

It is important that they know the friends of their children. As the saying since time immemorial says, “Tell me who your friends are and I tell you who you are.” At least the parents will get an idea what kind of people surround their children. This is a challenge of responsible parenthood.

On the part of the teachers, they should always instil in their students the proper values. They should always remind their students about the consequences of getting drunk, especially on females. They should also remind the male students not to take advantage of their female friends who become unconscious, and instead help them to regain consciousness.

Also on the part of the church — be they priests for Catholics and pastors for Protestants — to always remind their young people to concentrate and focus in knowing God. This is so that these young people will respect their fellow young people as they know that they were all made in God’s image.

On the part of the young people, may they realize that they are sent by their parents to school to study and not to indulge in night life or to drink liquor. They should have empathy towards their parents on their efforts to find money to be used in their needs while they are in school.

Certainly, Dr. Jose Rizal’s “The youth is the hope of the motherland” has nothing to do with the stream of ugly viral videos these days that unfortunately involve the youth the hero was so enthusiastic about.