Becoming A Nation of Cyber-Bullies

Posted by Victor Dela Casa

Paula Jamie Salvosa

Her video is on every social networking site around the world. She is perhaps the most popular Filipina right now. An internet sensation. She is trending. As of yesterday evening, she closed out all her social networking accounts claiming that she is receiving threats and being bullied by the public, a victim of our tendency to hurt and laugh at other people's mistakes. She is Paula Jamie Salvosa.

Sometime last week, Salvosa was caught on camera "causing" a scene at a LRT station somewhere in Manila. Apparently, the video shows Salvosa verbally abusing a female security officer at that station. Salvosa re-popularized buzz words like "amalayar" (i'm a liar) and "shishalayar" (she's a liar) when she cussed at the guard using her best English. With grandilouence, she even sort of gloated by saying "ameducated" (i'm educated) or something to that effect. Too much emphasis but not enough context, these words are now a-buzz all over the net.

Unfortunately for Salvosa, the person who caught the incident on film only gave us the part when she was already enraged and it's not indicative of how it all started; or who pushed whose button.

Raw Footage

In most networking sites, its became apparent that the actual abusiveness of Ms Salvosa became a source of humourous relief for many Filipinos. Graphics, images, video impersonations and all other forms of media is spread throughout the net to poke fun at how she went "ghetto". As we laugh at her, she's become a victim herself. We bullied her and abused her by exploiting a few minutes of her film without us even realizing it all for seemingly harmless and innocent laughs. Sadly, this girl is probably aggrieved and was defending herself at the time the home made movie was captured

Objectively speaking, I want to know what really happened. There's a part of me that's intrigued because I highly doubt that an educated Filipina, like Salvosa, would snap in public in a manner that contradicts her pompous claims of being highly educated Something must have triggered her.

She claims that the guard shouted at her rudely and pulled her in without proper courtesy. The guard is claiming that she followed procedure and that she was not in any way rude. In an interview by 24 Oras, the security officer was on video when she gave her statements and looking at her, she appeared sheepish, docile and meek. But we know many wolves in sheep's clothing here and based on first-hand experience, these LRT security guards can be really get nasty.

Although I rarely care about petty "kantyawan" or the amount of stupidity in the local news, I must admit that with everyone updating their profile to this incident, I'm kind of annoyed. I hate to sound like a party pooper since I too enjoy a good laugh but aren't we overdoing it? Are we becoming a nation of cyber-bullies waiting to pounce at the next person? Did we lose our objectivity and our capacity to tolerate? We've judged and mocked Salvosa without really getting into the bottom of what happened. I feel bad for Jaime Salvosa and I am sure she regretted her actions. I'd like to know what really happened as silly as that may sound. Sans any emotional trauma and suicide attempts, I hope she gets a small measure of absolution. Maybe she could sue the person who posted her clip for posting it without her written consent.

Finally, when security officers command you, best to just follow without questioning it or arguing if you don't want to be the internet's new flavour of the moment.

EXTRA: The Language of Cats
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