five degrees of separation

three thugs on a motorcycle. a girl with a cellphone. a gunshot. a headline.

anyone who'd been following the local cebuano news the first week of march has probably heard of that tragic story, the robbery and murder of ruby jade ruba, a 20 year old nursing student, just 3 weeks shy of her graduation. all for a cellphone.

it was late wednesday afternoon i heard. i was chatting up my friends on the internet when my friend chick broke the news. he said that a batchmate of his brother's girlfriend had just been shot the other night, around capitol site. then came the rest of the story, how the victim was weeks away from graduating, that she was working on her term paper late that evening, that she was returning to her apartment with another friend when the robbers found her, that the robbers grabbed her cellphone, shot her, and then fled on a motorcycle. 'is she alive?', we asked. 'no, she died', he said.

emoticons showing a virtual shaking of our heads filled our chat window one by one. chatmate ryan expressed concern for his own girlfriend, who usually got off from work late in the evening, and whose office was near the scene of the crime.

i was pretty alarmed, too. the place was a quick walk away from my office, and much quicker of you were riding a motorcycle. and i also happen to go home late in the evening. i never knew the victim, but the fact that we were separated by a mere four degrees (she being the batchmate of the girlfriend of the brother of my friend) made it all seem so much closer to home. if it could happen to her, i see no reason why it could not happen to me also.

public shock and outrage followed when the news spread. mayor tomas osmeña announced a P30,000 reward to anyone who could help in solving the crime. several suspects were arrested, one of them claiming that he killed the victim so he could extort P50,000 from a truck driver.

then came the headlines morning of the following monday. police have caught 3 suspects who they could confidently say were involved in the crime, aivan barabat, mark anthony gabriel and karl marx carticiano, the first 2 having confessed to doing it. those 2 were also said to be members of the local chapter of the crips gang. the 3rd, who the first 2 suspects say was the driver of their getaway motorcycle, was arrested when he voluntarily came to the police station to deny any involvement. a 4th person was arrested, to whom the first 2 suspects say they sold the cellphone for P3,000. in a congratulatory pat on their collective backs for the quick resolution, police declared the case closed.

makes it all seem like P3,000 is worth nothing. makes it all seem like a life is worth nothing.

"Trip ra to. Gikan mi nag-inom. (It was just our trip after drinking)," the papers quoted them as saying.

from hongkong, my ofw friend tope had also been following the news that morning. after reading of that story, he told us over the same chat window of his shock over the discovery that he knew one of the accused, aivan barabat. he used to work as the 'boy' or 'alalay' in his old office.

that announcement finally drew the connection from victim to suspect, making the crime all the more tragic. victim - girlfriend of chick's bro - chick's bro - chick - tope - suspect. as far as we know, just five degrees separating them, five measly degrees, before the crime was committed. it may even have been smaller. and in a grim irony, the crime shrunk that separation from five degrees to just one: victim - suspect.

had that suspect known, would he have done it? had that suspect known, would it have mattered to him? had it occured to him that their prospective victim may be their friend's girlfriend or sister or mother or cousin, would he have done it?

makes you think, no? maybe that person sitting across you on the jeepney is a friend of a friend. or maybe the person asking you for directions could be your classmate's cousin. who knows, that person who you just saw drop his wallet is your neighbor's bestfriend. or the old jeepney driver who gave you five pesos more than the change you expected is your officemate's grandfather.

in his 'small world experiments', stanley milgram theorized that everyone in the world is connected to everyone else by an average of 6 degrees. and to think, that was in 1967. technology today has probably shrunk our world even smaller than it was in 1967.

i am sensing that, at least here in cebu, it's much, much smaller than six degrees. the least we can all do is play a bit more nicely with each other.

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published in the philippine daily inquirer 4/12/2008
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20080412-129894/Five-degrees-of-separation