Facebook killer!

In the news yesterday in the Philippines--a local actor-director named Ricky Rivero suffered more than 10 stab wounds in the chest and stomach in the early morning of June 13, 2011, and drove himself to a hospital near his place in Quezon City district. His alleged assailant was another man whom he befriended through Facebook just about only five months ago, the report said. Rivero was said to have invited this man to sleepover at his apartment on the 12th. The following early morning, Rivero and the man allegedly had an argument because the latter was asking for money. Rivero's guest was said to have become enraged during the argument hence the stabbing, and left the bloodied Rivero in his apartment in a jiffy.

Miraculously, Rivero was still able to drive himself to the hospital despite his wounds. He's still in the hospital now but there's no update as to his condition.

His alleged assailant was caught by village officials when he came to Rivero's apartment just moments after the attack, presumably to get some of Rivero's things. The village officials were alerted by Rivero's neighbors who were roused by the commotion.

If the real would-be murderer is really Rivero's Facebook friend (and Rivero already identified the guy as his assailant when police had presented the man to him at the hospital), this is another lesson for us all to be careful of persons we meet via the Net, especially for those who have the habit of eyeballing their Net friends. I've heard or read of other frightful stories (in the Philippines and abroad) where people have been victimized by their online "friends" whom they meet face-to-face and turn out to be criminals. Of course, these stories are not that many. I guess there are more kind people in the Net than there are bad people. But, it wouldn't hurt to be careful in the Net as we should also be in "real" life.