SWU dismisses 2 senior high boys in viral girl molestation video

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Southwestern University (SWU)-Phinma has dismissed the two senior high school students who appeared in a viral video molesting a 16-year old girl inside a vehicle.

Gilbert Braganza, SWU-Phinma vice-president for Student Life, told CDN-Digital on Friday, October 4, 2019, that they came out with the decision of exclusion against their students, after they’ve conducted an investigation on the case.

“Sa DepEd (Department of Education) manual its exclusion, it’s the same as dismissal. The student is taken out of the cluster of the school.  He is not allowed anymore to attend school, but he is still given the liberty to enrol in other schools,” Braganza said.

He revealed that the memorandum came out last Wednesday, October 2, 2019, which also mean that they can no longer re-enrol in SWU Phinma.

Braganza explained that exclusion is different from expulsion, since in expulsion the students are no longer allowed to enrol in other schools.

An expulsion also needs the approval from the regional director of DepEd for basic education and from Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for tertiary education.

“It’s based on our code of conduct on the student’s handbook, regarding misbehavior and violations committed. So that’s the main basis in our handbook, acts of lewdness, immorality requires such penalty,” he added.

Last month, the Women and Children Protection Desk (WCPD) of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) filed complaints for violations of the Anti-Photo and Anti-Video Voyeurism Act against four senior high school students, who were seen in the video molesting the girl.

The video was uploaded as “My Day” in the Instagram account of one of the students. But some netizens were able to download it and spread the video on other social media platforms.

One of the young men is also facing charges for rape and act of lasciviousness for sexually molesting the victim.

Earlier, the victim admitted that that she was too drunk to notice what her companions were doing to her inside the car. But when she woke up, she found herself inside an air-conditioned room.

The CCPO is currently holding in custody one of the four boys who was voluntarily surrendered by his parents.

Braganza identified one of their dismissed students in video as the one who was driving the vehicle and the other as the person who was actually molesting the girl.

He added that the three of them, including the girl who was molested, were actually classmates.

The other two males seen in the video are students from the University of Cebu (UC) and University of San Carlos (USC), respectively.

Braganza said also suspended another senior high school girl student for the rest of the semester, who was inside the vehicle while the molestation happened. The girl, who was also their classmate, was not seen in the video.

Braganza said that the two female students are now undergoing counselling.

The school also provides legal assistance to the victim.

“We are just assisting her in filing the criminal complaint. We will also be referring her to a more qualified lawyer to handle her case,” he said.

He also revealed that the victim is no longer attending her regular classes, but she is reporting every day in their guidance office where she is doing her academic works because she still felt uncomfortable attending her classes.

“I would like to urge the schools, especially those who are involved in this case, to put actions that would prevent this from happening again,” Braganza added.

Braganza also hoped that those who are involved in the incident would learn from this and that they should be more vigilant in selecting their friends and how they behave in public.

He also expressed his disappointment that some people are taking advantage of the social media and technologies and use it for immoral acts./elb