The Andrea Brillantes Scandal: What Netizens Can Do

Video scandal is alive again and this time it involves a 12 year old lass named Andrea Brillantes. For those who are not in the know, she is one of the lead star of ABS-CBN of the erstwhile afternoon drama series Anna Liza.  She figured right now in a number one trending video which showed her doing some lewd acts inside their house.  At one point in the video she was shown naked and touched her most vital part insinuating a masturbation.

from #Repost @missizacalzado with @repostapp

The video caught the interest of netizens and it spread like wildfire.  However, it seemed that sympathy was on her side as many online users are spreading the hashtag #respectAndreaBrillantes.  Yes, many Filipinos were quite sympathetic to her and each one has something to say.  On Twitter, there are tweets urging everyone to respect Andrea and retweet if they care.  On Facebook, many are angry and quickly pointed out some laws relevant to this situation such as Republic Act 7610 Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation, and Discrimination Act.

However, it is debatable if the star in the video was indeed her or if the video was real or not.  But just the same, there are some things which should be pointed to everybody before joining the bandwagon of viewing this sensitive video. While other people would say that if indeed it was Andrea, it was her own fault that this thing happened had she not captured herself in this kind of video.

• The video involves a 12 year old girl as such, when you view the video it is like promoting certain perversion like pedophilia for example.
• Sharing the video is not just wrong but it is a sin to humanity as it is tantamount to promoting pedophilia and of course abuse and exploitation of a minor.
• When you watch the video, you might be unconsciously satisfying a personal perversion which you are not aware of at the moment.

With that, there are many things which netizens can do on top of spreading the word not to watch the video and urging other online citizens to stop spreading the video.

• First, netizens should join hands and make a manifesto condemning the act of spreading the video and watching it.
• Second, promote the idea of limiting selfie to wholesome images in order to avoid incidents like this. 
• Third, netizens should help find out who spread the video first. In this way, it will help curb or minimize people to spread videos like this as netizens will really take them down.
• Fourth, netizens and Filipinos in general should participate fully if there are public hearings to hear ideas on how to tackle video sharing of minors through the Internet.  This way, it will help sources of video like this such as computer shops, thieves, and even people close to the victims will think more than twice to share and spread video scandals. 

Right now, netizens should not watch the video as there will be no videos like this in the future if there are no watchers.  This is how simple the solution is.  In addition, people should have a change of paradigm of instead of videoing themselves doing lewd acts, why not create videos of them showing good deeds instead.