Conscience

I stopped watching the news a few months ago. It was a conscious effort on my part, as I always feel so hopeless after watching it. The newspapers, I read more for the lifestyle section and my favorite columnist's writings. But that's just about it. I skim the headlines. If it's an article about goings on in the government that I feel is just a whole load of crap, I skip it.

So, while I was in Davao, stuck in a hotel room with nothing else left to do, I channel surfed. I accidentally tuned in to ABS-CBN's primetime news, which featured the following "news worthy" items:

1. The uncle who raped his niece
The niece's whole head was covered with a towel. She was crying and screaming the whole time, threatening to kill her alleged rapist (the uncle). The accused on the other hand, had this smirk on his face, telling the press that it was his niece who offered herself to him, that the niece sexually desires him.

2. The tricycle driver who moonlights as a mugger
The police had received reports about this tricycle driver whose modus operandi includes taking his victims (mostly women) to dark places and mugging them there. The accused has an existing police record, and has been caught many times already, but always manages to bail himself out.

3. The con artist who sells anti-witchcraft stuff
The victim claims that she paid P10T for an anting-anting designed to counter witchcraft spells. Victim said that the suspect never sent her ordered anting-anting, and would always threaten her with witchcraft whenever she tried to follow it up.

These crimes happened in different locations, with different people and different genders. But I noticed, they all had one thing in common. In all instances, the suspects never showed even a tiny sign of guilt. Or remorse. No regrets. No emotions. No nothing. In fact, almost all of them tried to reverse the situation to make it appear that they were the ones victimized. The uncle claimed that he rebuffed his niece's sexual offers, so she's now screaming for his head. The tricycle driver claimed that he is an innocent victim of a frame up. And the con artist claimed that the anting anting had already been sent to her aunt, but since the victim was makulit, her aunt got mad and decided not to send it to the victim, to teach her a lesson.

The fact that people can commit crimes like these, that is not what scares me. What scares me is the fact that they can do it without feeling guilty for their actions. Because for people to feel guilty, they need to have a conscience. And if they have no conscience, then what's stopping people from killing and hurting each other?

Maybe that's the problem with this country -- conscience, or the lack of it. This is a country where it's all right to scam people and run away with their hard earned millions, as with what happened in Bulacan's local animal industry. This is a country where the president's husband spends the night in a room worth thousands of USD to watch a boxing match, while the rest of the country shoulders the cost. This is a country where politicians are free to cheat and steal and kill during the elections, never mind that the citizens' rights to vote are disregarded in the process.

I can go on and on and on about the many conscience-less things that are happening now. Like the never ending murder of journalists. Or the Carlos Garcia case which, predictably, is quiet now. But nothing will change anyway. This post will be read. Newspapers will still report the same load of crap about our government officials. People will still have no conscience. So what's the point of listing them down, one by one? Maybe, it would be better to just accept the situation as it is. Or, maybe better if I stop listening, reading and watching the news altogether.