DAGUPAN CITY – Alarmed by reports of girls being molested or raped even by family members, Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz ordered all high school girls studying in the 16 Catholic schools covered by his diocese to be taught self-defense.

“I like the girls to learn self-defense – karate or whatever self-defense methods. They should also be taught to grab a stick or stone or others and to throw these at their attackers,” Cruz said. “Girls who know self-defense can defend themselves against adults.”

He said girls should be taught to be calm, alert and observant and to grab anything to stop any possible attack.

“They should not only use their hands and feet but should fight attackers with something more solid,” Cruz said.

He said a priest in his archdiocese, who holds a brown belt in karate, would be named director of the self-defense program. He declined to name the priest.

“The priest is very gentle, very upright and very honest. He will help much in teaching high school girls,” he said.

Cruz issued the order in October last year but only the St. John Academy in this city had started the training program.

He described the program as an “additional knowledge to pure academic and scholastic activities.”

The bishop said he was more concerned about girls because if they are not educated, they mostly become “punching bags” of their husbands or partners.

“If they are not educated, they have no livelihood, they could be easily abused by their husbands and they usually stay [in the conjugal home] because they have nowhere else to go,” he said.

But he said he was not being biased.

“What I’m saying is the girls need the education and training more. You see, I do a lot of marriage intervention and when I hear that a woman is a ‘baby maker,’ a ‘punching bag’ and a victim of violence, my blood boils,” Cruz said.