THE University of Santo Tomas is in the news for taking the side of a fifth-year engineering student accused of molesting a third-year fine arts student in a public vehicle in June 2016.
The girl’s brother narrated the incident, as told to him by his sister, on his Facebook account.
She was on her way home from school and took a van. She did not have enough sleep the previous night so she napped. And then she felt a hand brushing up her leg. She ignored it and repositioned her leg and felt the hand go away. After a while, however, it was back on her leg.
There are many options available to a woman who finds herself being touched without her consent. This girl took a photo of her molester, who happened to be her school mate. She posted the photo on Twitter and typed a short warning to commuters.
The school’s Student Welfare and Development Board got wind of the post and subsequently asked that the girl take it down. She was called to its office and accused of “falsely accusing another student of wrongdoing,” under a provision of the university code of conduct and discipline. The case dragged and the board soon reached a resolution. The girl was made to apologize to the boy. The Notice of Resolution required her parents’ signature, as well, as proof that they accept the board’s decision.
In its official statement, the university said that the facts and evidence mentioned by the brother on Facebook “do not conform to the records on file.” It then proceeded to emphasize its obligation to keep the confidentiality of student discipline cases but said it observed due process.
The statement is logical—but glaringly lacks a condemnation of the ills that continue to hound our society today.
Since no official records—even the actual Twitter posts have since been taken down—will be made available, the public is made to assume that the contest was a she-said-it-said: The words of a young woman who must have thought a thousand times whether or not to come forward with her story, and a 400-year-old educational and religious institution whose word is rock. Whom we choose to believe is a matter of personal choice.
The parties concerned will eventually come to terms with their versions of what actually happened. Meanwhile, we are left aghast at how much more attractive it is to keep silent about abuse, particularly when going up against a powerful, and self-righteous institution.
Sadly, it is still all to common to blame the victim.
Any institution, big or small, old or new, that claims to act as guardians of the youth but perpetuates this thinking has no business acting “in loco parentis”—in place of parents.