On Crossed Fathers and Digital Crossings

Our last meeting's discussion reminded me of a girl I met about ten years ago. She came from one of the far flung municipalities in our province and like me, came here to study for college. She used to stay with one of my former high school classmates who was also studying here. That's how I came to know her.

I can't remember a time when this girl was not sitting in front of her PC. Every time I visited their apartment, she would be there tapping at the keys and smiling at her camera. She would spend a lot of her hours on the net and a lot of her allowance on prepaid internet cards. We concluded then that she was addicted to this thing called internet chat.

One time, coming back from summer vacation, I visited their apartment and found she wasn't there anymore. I was told she won't be coming back as her father decided she will be continuing her studies in the province. That way they could watch over her. "Why?" I asked.

It appears that during the summer, her parents got the surprise of their lives when a Pakistani guy came knocking at their door looking for their daughter. Today, having a foreigner visiting would not be so uncommon in many of our sleepy towns. But during that time, it would give a poor old farmer a heart attack. Just imagine someone who has stayed in the same old town all his life suddenly having to contend with his just recently turned eighteen daughter socializing with someone from the other side of the planet. And through this new thing he doesn't understand called the internet! For him, its something that's not so easy to digest.

As it happened, there were no hotels in their town. As Filipinos with hospitality embedded in their genes, her parents can't stop themselves from inviting their visitor to stay. I could imagine the father trying to restrain himself while the mother plays the diplomat. And you could imagine what happened right after their visitor left.

I never heard about the girl again. But I do hear the same story more and more these days. I guess these stories are anecdotal but they do corroborate the finding that 70% of internet users in the rural areas are women and a majority of them go online for "social networking." Like Prof. Gigo Alampay, I make no value judgments. I hope the same is true with you.