EDITORIAL - Life is cheap

What happened to a 20-year-old Architecture student last week in Lipa, Batangas, seems something made for telenovelas.

Jazmine Iya Martinez was found dead in Barangay Duhatan with five stab wounds. Lipa City Police said CCTV footage showed her being followed by a man on a motorcycle as she walked along the road where she was later found dead.

Twelve days later, a rider was arrested on suspicion of being involved. The suspect, “Lance” later confessed that he had indeed killed Martinez on the behest of a man named “Kevin”, who paid him ?10,000 to murder her.

Now the twist; police said Kevin courted Martinez for two years but had been rejected.

This would seem like a classic case of narcissism; if I can’t have you then no one else can. Police are now looking into this incident as a “crime of passion.” Kevin has denied he is involved in the incident but the investigation continues.

Shocking as it may be, this incident isn’t really something new, is it? Jilted suitors have reacted extremely to rejections since time immemorial; it’s practically the stuff of songs, legends, and even screenplays.

But what’s different today is that it’s so easy to get offended or to bear a grudge because of how social media has rewired our minds to think that everything is about us and that we immediately deserve everything we pursue.

Morals have also become easier to discard these days, what with the glorification of the loose, accountability-free, and even entitled lifestyle in TV and movies.

It’s also easier to find someone to do your dirty work for you and for a cheap price too, in this case only ?10,000. For those who want someone dead, life can indeed be cheap.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Kevin is guilty, and that there are more people out there with his attitude. In this case it seems we don’t just have to worry about students who are being bullied by classmates shooting up schoolmates with guns; we now have to worry about jilted suitors being vengeful and acting extremely.