Last February 16, 2024, the DLSU Freedom Wall Facebook page was in flames over a submitted post that was about how a DLSU student had their phone stolen while at the UP Fair.
The post went like this:
“I had a bad experience at the UP Fair and it made me realize how safe DLSU really is, imagine you can leave anything anywhere and you’d still find it in the same place you left it a few moments before. However, in UP I put my phone lang in my pocket and it got snatched the moment I let my guard down for a second by a person who thinks stealing is as fair play as having a normal decent job. Is it my fault for getting used to the safe environment la salle has created for its students or was my reaction valid?
Most of the time I just think I’m really stupid for letting my guard down like that. Happy valentines to me ig : ))”
The post has since been deleted from the DLSU Freedom Wall Facebook page, but everyone was decking each other out in the post’s comments section—including the page’s admin.
Some had taken offense with how OP had written their post, others victim-blamed OP for not being careful with their things and made fun of them for having a “skill issue,” others swerved the entire topic from the fact that OP was talking about stealing to the kind of privilege DLSU students have. Some were even borderline supporting stealing from Lasallians.
Others in the comment section who didn’t do any of the above were criticizing how people were reacting to the post, most especially calling out how they were mobbing OP because they were offended.
The issue was also shared by a Reddit user, questioning why most DLSU students are being invalidated whenever they share not-so-good experiences. “As the caption says, why is it kapag Lasallian ang naapi, nasaktan, or nanakawan it all of a sudden becomes less of a valid concern? It’s disheartening to see that some think like this. Kapag part ka ng certain subset of people like the DLSU community your concerns aren’t valid anymore or because you’re complaining automatically means your privileged. Case in point the reaction of some people to the person who got bitten sa Razon by the batang kalye. Lumalaki lang divide between the Universities dahil sa mga tulad nitong mga comment [As the caption says, why is it that when a Lasallian is mistreated, hurt, or robbed, it suddenly becomes less of a valid concern? It’s disheartening to see that some people think like this. When you belong to a certain subset of people like the DLSU community, your concerns aren’t considered valid anymore, or because you’re complaining automatically means you’re privileged. A case in point is the reaction of some people to the incident of someone being bitten at Razon by a street child. This only exacerbates the divide between the universities because of comments like these],” the user said.
What people fail to read about this entire kerfuffle was that OP was merely speaking out about their own experiences. Sure, it could have been written in a better way that didn’t sound like they were saying that DLSU was safer than UP, but OP was most likely just driven by their frustration as they were writing it.
And, that’s not even the end of the whole thing. People were out there invalidating OP’s feelings just because of the school they go to and were blaming them for not being vigilant enough in a public setting.
We understand that the UP Fair is an open-air public event, where people can just come and go without being checked. So of course, in such a place, OP should have been more careful by placing their things in a more secure place. But OP did place their phone in their pocket, which technically is supposed to be a safe place, but still got it stolen.
And what, just because they’re from a private university they have to be treated this way for them to learn the “realities” of life? Isn’t the generalization coming from the ones accusing OP of generalizing their university?
Stealing is bad. We all know that, and yet some people wish for others to be victimized by it because of their “privilege.” Not everyone who studies in a prestigious university is blessed with money their whole life, nor is everyone “sheltered” their entire lives. Things that people say about a certain university may have its truths, but not everything is true. This is just one of them, and it’s quite tiring to always try to fight people on the internet who are so close-minded on the things they say they know about.
It’s also such a shame that people these days have less empathy towards other people they consider having “more.” We’re all just people living and surviving in our own ways, can we stop being so hard on each other?
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