Morality is a private and costly luxury -- Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918) American Historian

This is a true story.

My sister has endured traumatising experience when her bag got snatched some two months ago. She said it happened so fast that she could not react. She barely moved and could only watched the motorcyclist kissed her goodbye as he ran off.

My mother had experienced it twice. In fact, it was a lot worst. She was walking in areas teeming with passers-by when it happened, and in both occassions she had her handbag being snatched by a pillon rider on a motorcycle. She was smart, though, to have let the bag off her. But the second time it happened, she said that, she was suddenly enraged that her first instinct was to clutch her bag tighter, instead of giving up to those low-life thieves. She further said, though she did not manage to secure it in the end, she did pull a really good fight with them. Heck, I believed that, and I know she could do better than that if she wanted to. She’s a soldier, not just by her rank, but by her heart as well.

Nonetheless, in all those occassions, not one came to their aid. But, I guess those who were there were as stunnned as them to have acted quickly or to have acted at all. (positives, positives).

Some people. Too desperate to continue on with their life, that they would resort in making another miserable instead. What they took not only the victim’s material possessions, I think, but the psychological effects that it has are much greater and severe. My mother, until now her heart tends to go cold whenever she hears a motorcycle. She would step aside, look at the motorcyclists and wait for him to go past before she walks on.

If I were that motorcyclist, being put into position of having been stared by some random strangers as if you were ought to do some crime; I would be offended by that stare. But, I understood the fear coming from her experience that she resort to discriminating them in general.

I discriminate them too, because it happened to someone so close and loved the most. I hate what they did for whatever reasons that they might give to justify their action. I used to think that they do not deserve to live.

One day, as I was doing another "social loafing" (aka couch potato-ing) with few friends at work, a friend of mine tried to attract our attention with the new video that some friend forwarded to her handphone.

We all gathered around, straining our eyes out just to see the video in her tiny Nokia phone with ever-so poor resolutions (yes, I do manage to squeeze my utter abhorrence towards Nokia phone).

It was a video of this girl who got beaten by the crowd after (as my friend explained) she was caught red-handed doing the act while riding as a pillion with her boyfriend (whom we assumed). He was lucky (again, assumed since he was not in the video) managed to escape, leaving the girl behind to pay the price.

We could see, despite through the small screen, as to how the crowd reacted to such crime. Petty crime, so petty indeed, but they were furious, livid, and were clearly dissatisfied with her act that they decided to teach her a lesson.

She was punched, and kicked profusely by several men twice her size. They continued to beat her for several minutes, non-stop and at one point one of them focused his blow on her head while the rest of the crowd viciously slurred at her with nasty words and spit at her without any mercy.

There were also times in the video where they humiliated her by trying to pull her trousers off and she would be too weak to even defend to her dignity that she was finally left with her t-shirts and panties only.

Some of us couldn't bear to watch anymore, as the beating continued on for few minutes. The crowd did not stop, and she was literally struggling for her life, covering her pain and dignity with what’s left in her when suddenly, this one guy, came out of nowhere with a big rock on his hand, struck her on her head with it and with full force.

With just that the girl stopped struggling. She was dead by that final blow alone.


Those who were watching that day went silent for awhile. We were all too stunned as we did not anticipate the outcome.


There could be no words to describe what we have seen that day. It’s like watching a murderer committed a murder. Or some pre-meditated murder, as witnessed and approved by us.

Some people said they get what they deserve. I know it’s true, but, still though, how come it felt so wrong?