Alumnus Horribilus

Mark Joseph Solis is now the most hated U.P. alumnus in the blogosphere. Judging from the heat generated in my Facebook account which, incidentally, is the most empirical way to validate this conclusion, this unfortunate graduate student is the man currently garnering the most votes for the "let's throw him under the bus" award.

Whoops. I just described him as unfortunate. Next thing I know, I'll be the target of hate mail. There's so much relentless negativity centered around him that I could be scored just for displaying the tiniest amount of sympathy.

Mark Solis is the guy they just caught winning sundry photo competitions using other people's works. In short, he stole the pics from Flickr accounts, and passed them off as his own. Various awards later, some pissed off photographer found out and complained, and fairly quickly, Solis became front page material. And the target of many a hate post.

A few sympathetic souls have ventured the opinion that here is a kid who should be forgiven because maybe, just maybe, Solis might just be misguided and a victim of his own youth, but those lily-livered feeble-hearted saps didn't last long. The volume and ferocity with which the sympathizers were rebuffed were enough to quickly silence them.

What's with the venom? Why is this happening? A host of reasons I could explore, some of which might just be pure speculation. But I'll express them anyway (for no other reason than that it's fun?)

First, Solis just sullied the hallowed name of UP. Most alumni are damn proud of their degrees from this institution, and the stain on UP, which automatically stained their (our) credentials, made people see red. Not maroon, but flaming red.

Second, they don't find him sufficiently repentant. Just his supposed apology alone was enough to set off my own hackles, especially when he said it was due to his "youth, inexperience, and inability to see the repercussions of (his) actions".

What does that mean? It's bad enough he's laying the groundwork for some sympathy thrown his way via the youth card. But come on, don't cop out because you're 'young'. You are an adult, you know what stealing is.

And 'inability to see the repercussions?' That if he knew he was going to get caught, he wouldn't have done it? That doesn't seem sufficiently apologetic.

Third, he played the freaking poverty card! When asked about why he did it, he said his family was hard-up, and he was tempted by the prize money into doing what he did. But observers felt this was just calculated to play to that unique UP identity of sympathizing with the masa-chusetts in society (oops, that's the masses in vanilla English), and they somehow could not bring themselves to believe him. One angry colleague even disputed the background scene for his televised interview, saying the modest rented house he had used wasn't his real home.

Last, Solis just came at the wrong time. We are in the midst of the Janet Lim Napoles scandal, where the stench of government corruption just keeps getting more and more toxic. Many taxpayers are furious at the revelations on government (mis)spending, and the blatant falsehoods and deceptions played upon them by 'trusted' government officials. And here comes Solis merrily along. Voila, a new poster boy for everything that's wrong with society is born.

In all the fora I've looked at, the invariable comment is, here stands one future congressman or senator, his career path so readily obvious, him having displayed all the right qualities so early. (That, and many other libelous comments that are so delicious, I don't think I care to share them.). But you get my drift. The socio-political milieu in which the Solis scandal occurred couldn't have been worse, as all the aggression and hostility the pork barrel scandal brewed suddenly found a new target.

Advice for this young fellow alumni whose future now seems bleak and irretrievably lost? Hmm. Well, next time, instead of blabbing about his youth and lack of money, he could just go the route of Senator Jinggoy Estrada. In the Senator's famous words, while being asked pointed questions about his multi-million home over the phone:

"Ano? Hello? Hello?!" (Line disconnected)