DISCLAIMER:
I have always lived by the adage that "There are three sides to every story: my side, your side and the truth." So, I would like people to believe what they want to believe, but at the same time, not to place blame with no basis whatsoever, just because of who said what first. It is right when someone once said that "The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be."
Here's what I know: I have been consistently bullied on cyberspace for almost more than a year now. I have not been too privy on divulging this information to everyone because I always thought, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and well, because honestly, I have long since accepted it comes with the job and the profession I decided to partake in. It was this strength in particular that has enabled me to withstand all the betrayals I have gone through in the past. I started blogging because it was my passion, and I have been doing so since late 2007. I am accustomed to how the industry works, and how viewership is the currency of this community. But I would like to say that no amount of viewership can hide the truth. A certain blogger has issued a statement defaming my name. I do not know where she got these conclusions but for someone who has wronged me enough already, I assumed all the defamation would stop, before escalating to this level. It didn't, it hasn't and until the truth gets settled for once and for all by the right authorities, it won't.
But at this point, allow me to present the facts, as I have been receiving numerous death threats from so-called influential people, and at this point, I am fearing my safety and the safety of my loved ones.
Here are the facts: Starting last year, I have been receiving hate comments about my weight loss, my physical appearance, my body frame and my health. It progressed to being just hate comments on my how I looked or dressed to emotional low blows and it has gone to the point that people would even stoop so low that they would comment on my sickness. All these comments can be traced to one area, specifically. Despite these vicious cyber attacks, I remained quiet and did not react.
Last year, a friend, I considered almost like a sister, betrayed me and I found out she has been backstabbing me endlessly for the past years since I knew her. I considered her a person I could trust with everything (and I did) yet she still stirred up, instigated and spread rumors about me. A lot of people have confirmed this fact to me. This left me devastated since best friends don't talk ill about their best friends to other people.
This year, two girl friends who I considered very important, ditched me and avoided me like a plague, pretending not to get my text messages and my calls to "get together"
like we used to... all because I have ties with certain people they dislike. I reckon, they thought their friendship with me was not at all important in their quest for fame and fabulous-ness and naturally since Friend #1 had ill feelings towards a person I am related to, Friend #2 followed suit, and as if that was a valid enough reason to ditch a friend like that, they even went to extraordinary measures to gossip about me and my new alliances to other people, who, because of loyalty, reported it back to me. Despite all this knowledge, the betrayals and the loss, I remained quiet and did not react.
This entire year, it has been ongoing that troll twitter accounts have been harassing me and the people I love with trivial and very obvious questions, which have been very loaded and damaging to any person, even cracking a joke about my heart condition which was the lowest blow. I was able to track the owner of one of the said accounts and I confronted this person privately and reached an agreement with her for ceasefire. Despite this realization and the actual admission from one of the parties involved, I remained quiet and did not react, and I did not reveal any identities.
When I was confined to the hospital for a major surgery last August of this year to extract a tumor that grew on my abdominal region, a group of three top bloggers, created a troll account, which one of them has admitted to having done so to a common friend. The tweets included how:
(1) my surgery was to cure my chronic lying syndrome and that my brother was to undergo the same procedure in a week's time
(2) my family and relatives are a congregation of liars
(3) they wished and prayed I die in the operation table
(4) they wished I overdose on anesthesia and never wake up, that is, to name a few key points.
This was all happening days when I was undergoing pre-operation preparations and procedures and continued up to the date of my actual operation. I know who the people involved were, exactly due to one of the said party's admission of guilt. I hinted as to who they were as a warning but never confirmed any names or identities- even if I had proof beyond reasonable doubt that it was them. Despite the non-stop badgering, the endangerment they have put me through both physically and emotionally and the hating, I never revealed their identities, to this day. Instead, I remained quiet and did not react.
A few weeks ago, a website, called D-List Burn Book hosted primarily at Tumblr and then at Webnode has repeatedly defamed my name to an audience of what I learned was around 2-million unique viewers (this figure, I got from an in depth analysis so I can assume for damage control regarding the site from hired I.T. engineers). The cyber assault included low blows, snide remarks, physical retorts and exaggerated and untrue accounts centering on some fashion bloggers, but focusing primarily on me and my close friend, Dominique.
It even went to the point that my family was victimized by lies and accusations, with the attack being directed to my mother, who I love dearly. This cyber bullying did not stop until last week. I hope you can bear with me and imagine how it felt like to not be able to sleep soundly for weeks, fearing the next "post" or in the person's words
"pasabog" was about me or about someone I love. It was weeks and weeks of agony and my life was put on hold as all my efforts were concentrated to stopping this website. Everything save for the twitter account, dlistburnbook, have all been deleted. But the emotional scar of the experience remains. I can only pray it heals in time. With regards to this, I have not remained quiet and reacted quite forcefully in majority of my social networks, since in my opinion, say what you want about me, but don't drag the people I love in the picture.
More so, with regards to the creation of the faultinourchot twitter account, which tried to insinuate my involvement on the said site, I was very hurt and furious. This was a futile and desperate attempt to again place the blame on me. Who in their right mind would partake in a site which had the main objective of tarnishing the name I have worked so hard to protect?
Two Sundays ago, a site was put up, revealing the identities of the "alleged" conspirators behind the gossip site, and the blogger domain was called D-List Burn Book End. (You may view the site via http://truthaboutdlist.com) I always had an idea with regards to who was involved because of the very delicate issues revealed about me and my loved ones, however, the proof that was before my eyes was too severe and heartbreaking to bear, considering, one of the said parties in the conspiracy, who was feeding information to the one that wrote it, was, at one point a very close friend of mine. Hours after said people were confronted, all the sites involved in this "burn book," were shut down and they disappeared and were deactivated, save for one, the one that contained the damning statements regarding me and my loved ones.
With regards to the screencaps, I could not contest its validity, granted that I take things at face value and believe in only facts, as I see them before my eyes. However, due to blurring of the other party's identity, I decided to give the benefit of the doubt and focused instead on rejoicing in the fact that the site, which terrorized me for so long already had been shutdown. That for me was a great victory, and that was what I centered on. At the same time, "#justice" for certain parties and personalities were called for.
I never denied nor confirmed any person's involvement in the site and until now, I have not named names...at all, despite consistent prodding from readers and followers. I went on with my life and tried to live it as fully as possible- hurt, wounded, scarred and traumatized- yet willing, with great perseverance to just keep breathing. To this day, you may ask anyone or even look through my twitter and blog archives to see that I never gave any confirmation with regards to anyone's alleged involvement in the said gossip site. I only presenting the evidence as it exists.
One valuable lesson my parents always instilled in me was to give people the benefit of the doubt even when the evidence is so damning, and to always view issues such as these wherein the people involved are always supposed to be treated "innocent until proven guilty." Despite the hard core evidence and proof before my eyes, I stayed quiet and carried on with my life.
In my attempts to "Keep Calm and Carry on," I knew that it was unavoidable to bump into certain people I wished to avoid especially since everyone virtually knows everyone in Manila. I always thought it was possible to coexist and be on neutral territory with the alleged individuals, especially when in certain venues, where rules of social interaction are deeply enforced.
I am a very small framed individual with a slew of medically diagnosed physical ailments. Ailments, which on many occasions, are very life threatening. I never thought of playing the victim role because, I knew, living day by day, despite my conditions, already involved putting up a fight, against my own body and symptoms. I never thought that it was important to broadcast to the world the battles and struggles I go through every single day... that is until now, in this entry, because I believe that doing so, will attest to my innocence in all of this. I cannot begin to tell you the struggle it takes to live through what I am going through, having all my conditions. At most times, I feel how I live my life is not normal, and rightfully so, with the constant medical supervision provided by my beloved private duty nurses and with regular doses of medications to make me appear normal and fully functional to the outside world.
Nobody knows this because I take a lot of time and effort in appearing as normal as possible, because in all honesty, who would want to see a sickly and weak fashion blogger wearing clothes? This may be why it would be easy to contest the existence of my conditions especially to those who don't see me when I am symptomatic, because I do not look sick at all. BUT at the end of the day, who would want to resign to the fact that they can be defeated by their circumstances? Isn't the whole purpose and meaning to life struggling against everything that would pull you down?
The reason I am sharing this very vital information (which only a few trusted individuals know in detail) is because, if you were in my shoes, given all the problems I am already living with day by day, can you honestly tell me that you would have the energy to participate in a petty bar room brawl? Having gone through so much already and with the knowledge that: no matter what I do, my physical ailments are enough to prevent me from invoking any bodily harm on other people without doing so on myself first.
I would not instigate, initiate or partake in anything I am being accused of because:
(1) I am sick as it is, provoking a fight resulting in physical harm would be detrimental to my health, which is to begin with, already in jeopardy,
(2) I have too much problems to think of and actual life and death issues to deal with 24/7 which allow me to shun certain problems and simply let go,
(3) I was raised by my parents with values, the knowledge that respect begets respect and to know better than to inflict harm on others, as I hope no harm is inflicted to me
and
(4) I fear for my life, constantly, given my many ailments, and engaging in combat would only worsen my condition and I am very concerned with protecting my life.
Suffice to say, I have been bullied a lot this year already, especially in cyberspace. I do not want to be bullied further in any way at all. What I did not expect was to be bullied, physically and to be shoved more than once by a certain group of people on that certain night out. What a certain blogger is narrating as her accounts of the night are in her perspective so I am guessing she failed to acknowledge that I was hit and fell which resulted in my drink unintentionally being thrown at my friends. As far as I am concerned, that is the only drink incident I am aware of and my companions for the night were the ones who suffered and got wet, as a direct result of me being tripped and falling down on the floor. A glass being broken was never involved in this event as I was able to grasp my glass even if its contents spilled...despite the impact of my fall.
While I am not yet in the position to say what or who in particular caused my fall, I know that the people involved are aware of what they did and why it resulted to me falling to the ground and being injured. After this incident of me falling down, what I know is that we finished our remaining drinks and left the premises as soon as possible, given I was already fearing for my safety. The last time I ever held a glass that night was when I fell down and to this I can attest to. Anything else being blamed at me has no basis whatsoever as I was on the way to vacating the premises to avoid further trouble when any other incident were claimed to have occurred.
People can say whatever they want to say, find people to back this up and sadly, sometimes, even pay people to back their claims up. I know how the world works and at the end of the day, I know that it was me who was injured and it was my conditioned which worsened as a result of my assault. I know for a fact that at the end of the day, what will stand true is what can be proven by (1) CCTV recordings of the night in question (2) reliable eyewitnesses to the event, which I know will back up my claim. With regards to this, I have full faith that the only final damage that can result further from the night in question was further aggravation of my spinal disc bulge and the numerous bruises I incurred from falling down.
What I am most afraid of, at this point, is the safety of my family and of myself. The escalation of the sinister events which led up to these injuries, starting from being assaulted online, being recklessly endangered by being wished death... hours leading up to my surgery and then being assaulted physically, more than once, cause me to fear, in every sense of the word, for my life. I have made a proactive decision not to stay quiet with regards to addressing this issue, because I am receiving threats against my life and safety ...from certain people and random numbers who have been contacting me via my cellphone and blaming me in their social media platforms non-stop.
I am not here to clear my name but to state that at the end of the day, I have been victimized for more than a year already by the same issues and the same people. I stayed quiet. Why would I, attack at random in public, where I am outnumbered, given that it is not in my nature in first place?
I do not deserve this and I do not deserve to be blamed for anything that ensued that night, after I was already victimized in the first place. I am urging everyone to seek the truth, know the facts and prevent bias when forming your conclusions. The honest truth is in front of you and the proof has been documented.
At the end of the day, the knowledge that I was consistently hurt, belittled and battered both by scathing words and by strong physical blows, and find myself healing from this, wanting to still keep breathing, is reason enough for me to fight for myself and for what is right. I hope everyone finds enlightenment from this and avoid further injury than what has already been inflicted.
TRUTH and TIME will tell all.
