VIRAL: Terrified woman shares sexual harassment trauma in jeepney ride

MANILA, Philippines – A post narrating a woman’s experience of sexual harassment in public recently went viral on Facebook.

In a Facebook post that has generated at least 7,000 likes and 3,000 shares as of January 28, *Sandra Dela Cruz recounted how a man touched himself in front of her in a jeepney.

“Today, I sat in a jeepney wearing a 3/4 sleeve dress with a backpack across my lap and a Mumuso ecobag full of sanitary napkins across my legs. The man sitting in front of me on the jeep suddenly jumped up then slid down, even if the jeep was moving at a regular pace….He had his dick out and he was masturbating,” Dela Cruz said in her post dated January 22. 

The experience caused her anxiety and trauma, Dela Cruz said.

“My mind blanked out because of shock. Again, in public, broad daylight…. I couldn’t decide what to do – I couldn’t yell, couldn’t say anything, didn’t even think of taking out my pepper spray (which really isn’t a smart thing to do),” she recounted. 

This is not the first time this happened to Dela Cruz. In the same post, she disclosed her first experience of sexual harassment in public 11 years ago. She was just 16 years old then when, while walking along their street in broad daylight, a man who she thought wanted to ask her for directions stopped directly in front of her and “unzipped his fly and took his privates out.” 

“He said something incomprehensible; when I asked ‘Ano po?’ he unzipped his fly and took his privates out. He started touching himself in front of me…, Until now, that image is burned in my brain,” she said.

“Thinking about it now – a man I did not know started touching himself in front of me, in a public place during broad daylight, the very street that I grew up in, a place that I’d always viewed as ‘safe’ – is that really ‘nothing’?” she added.

What victims should do

The Philippines has laws regulating acts of sexual harassment such as the Anti-Sexual Harrassment Act of 1995, the Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act, and the Revised Penal Code on Acts of Lasciviousness. Senator Risa Hontiveros recently filed 3 bills or the “Tres Marias” bills which seek to criminalize online sexual harassment.

Street harassment is penalized in Quezon City, the first city in Metro Manila to impose such a penalty. A Social Weather Stations (SWS) study in 2016 showed that 3 in 5 women were sexually harassed at least once in their lifetime in the city.

Anecdotal reports shared by Filipino women like Dela Cruz prove that sexual harassment in the Philippines continues. 

Victims of sexual harassment may file a case with the appropriate Regional Trial Court, designated as a Family Court, which has exclusive jurisdiction over cases of violence against women.

The Philippine Statistics Authority provides assistance to victims of sexual harassment in the agency which includes counselling, referral to agencies offering professional help, and advice or options before the victim files a complaint.

A victim can address sexual harassment in a number of ways, as suggested by street harassment expert Martha Langelan in her book, Back Off! How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassment and Harassers. Langelan suggested that the victim should show that he or she is neither a passive object of lust nor a hysterical victim. For Langelan, aggressive responses might lead to the harasser becoming aggressive in turn, or dismissing the anti-harassment message.

This can be done through “all-purpose” statements such as: “Stop harassing. I don’t like it. No one likes it. Show some respect,” or “When you say, ‘Hey sexy’, it makes me feel uncomfortable, and I’d prefer just a hello.” 

A victim may also name the behavior and then make a command: “You’re taking pictures of the women on this train without their consent. It’s incredibly disrespectful. Stop right now.” 

For Dela Cruz, victims may also document their experience. Taking a photo and noting details such as time, date, location will help the authorities look for the harasser.

Prevalence of rape culture 

While her post garnered empathy,  Dela Cruz also received comments that she believes are examples of how “rape culture” is perpetuated in the country. 

One of the comments dismissed her experiences as harmless since there was “no personal wrong directly done to her” and “no attempt to coerce the victim to do something she didn’t want to do.”

Others made a case to defend the harrassers by suggesting that they might have a psychological disorder. “The public needs to have awareness on mental health so we could avoid shaming people who could otherwise be suffering from mental illness.”

But even if that was the case, Dela Cruz said that does not mean “we just stand back and ‘understand’ them.”

“Does this unproven possibility take away from the fact that we were actually harassed, that we felt violated?” she added. 

Dela Cruz said she hopes her post can help other women speak out against sexual harassment and rape culture, in general. – Rappler.com 

*Not her real name