“What a horror”

I want to share a memorable story from my college years. We all know that sexual harassment

is a big deal, but after hearing the harassment done by my classmates to a fellow classmate, it

made me feel more uncomfortable.

Yes, it is normal to hear that a student or a group of students from our college were involved in

some kind of altercation or other frowned upon things such as fighting, fraternity stuff, smoking,

etc., but rarely against our own and never an act of sexual harassment.

But I realized that we must not easily jump into conclusions without hearing the full story. Not

even in my wildest dreams would I ever think that this is what really happened.

The incident took place on a Wednesday, also known as the “wash day” of the week for us, in

Emilio Aguinaldo College. We were allowed to wear jeans partnered with any school t-shirt or

polo. The victim of the alleged sexual harassment was wearing a school t-shirt which fits her

figure perfectly. She then observed that a group of classmates stare at her chest for an alarming

amount of time and even pointed their fingers to it. After feeling violated and harassed, she

decided to file a report with the admin staff of the College of Criminology and later on to the

Office of the Student Affairs (OSA).

In order to resolve the issue, the men accused of malicious staring and pointing were called in

the OSA to defend themselves, relay their side of the story and to face the person who filed the

complaint against them.

The men vehemently denied the allegations and one stated that.
“Hindi naman po namin tinititigan ung dib-dib nya. Opo, inaamin namin na pinag-uusapan namin

siya pero kaya po kami nakatingin kasi siya po ung may putok sa klase namin.”

After hearing the full story, I cannot imagine how much of an embarrassment it was for my

classmate who filed the complaint. A thing that could have been resolved with her directly

confronting our classmates was blown out of proportion because she prematurely involved the

school authorities.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that we should just shrug off sexual harassment, but what is

also important is to think before we act for not everything is what it seems on the surface. I hope

she learned her lesson that day. If I was the one in that position, oh what a damn horror that

would be.

Horror stories as we know it is not always about ghosts or monsters, sometimes these are

embarrassing situations that we only have ourselves to blame for.