A Simple Crime Story Sensationalized

JEERS TO the Manila Bulletin for sensationalizing what could have been a simple crime report.

On February 5, Bulletin reported a shooting incident involving Maricel Ramos, a resident of Bohol, and the family of her live-in partner, PO1 Rosalie Cuario, Ramos’s live-in partner. According to the report, Ramos went to Cebu to look for Cuario who had had been assigned to the security teams of the Sinulog Festival and the 51st International Eucharistic Congress in Cebu City. Cuario had not yet come home to Ramos despite the conclusion of the two events.

Police investigation revealed that Ramos’s search led her to the house of Cuario’s family where she wounded Vicente Cuario, the policewoman’s brother, after the latter denied knowing PO1 Cuario’s whereabouts. Ramos also fatally shot Rosita Cuario and Joel Cuario, her live-in partner’s mother and brother.

Ramos fled the area and was found by the police in the house that she and PO1 Cuario were renting. Police shot Ramos after she allegedly opened fire at them.

The Bulletin used the headline, “’Tomboy’ kills live-in partner’s family members, is slain by cops,”and opened the report with the following: “Fueled by jealousy, an enraged lesbian shot and killed family members of her live-in partner – a policewoman – but was later gunned down herself by police authorities in a public shootout in Calape town, this province, Wednesday night.”

The reference to “tomboy” in the headline was bad enough. Indeed, Bulletin misused the word “tomboy,” which describes a woman or girl with an interest in activities usually associated with men or boys. It is not indicative of a sexual preference, and is not synonymous with “lesbian.”

What made the Bulletin report worse was the overall scandalous tone of the story — “Jealousy made her crazy,” it quoted a police officer as saying without any reference to whether the officer is professionally competent to make a judgment on the mental state of the victim. The story did not refer to any evidence that jealousy was the motive for the crime.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer, in “In Bohol, lesbian affair turns deadly, leads to killing of 3,” at least had details on this angle sourced from the authorities. But the headline was misleading in that it suggested the violence involved the partners in a love triangle, thus sensationalizing the lesbian relationship. The police, according to the Inquirer report, reported finding text messages on Ramos’s cellphone suggesting a possible romantic dispute between the partners over PO1 Cuario’s alleged affair with an unidentified person.

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