Medyo mahaba tong story na to.
September 7.Yesterday there was a break-in in my apartment in a village in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig. 4 Teenagers ,ages 12-15 broke in , stole my roommates iPod, 2 of my watches and an old cellphone. Our house is usually empty during the day as we go to work or work on errands, my landlords house is virtually always empty as they have another home . On sunday afternoon the gardener(sosyal me gardener) saw some people coming out of the house, she shouted and the kids ran and scrampled away.They went in thru the grills in the windows as one of them were really small almost as thin and lanky as a 7 year old kid. After some investigation by our landlord ,they traced the kids back to the squatters area in the village , they caught one of the kid who immediately brokedown and was caught, the others left their homes and are still unseen by their parents til now. The kid was jailed in the barangay hall awaiting transfer to the DSWD the next day. During this time I was in tagaytay covering an event, when I first found out my initial thought was "gulpihin na lang, street justice" and "walang kwentang mga magulang, salot na mga squatter" . Well, I was really pissed off, I left the event a few hours early to rush back to my apartment to findout what was stolen. Total 2 watches and an old phone were missing cost of around 10k or more as one of the watches was a gift . I've faced some roberries before, one was when some house help stole from my grandmother and another when we caught someone in our home in manila. From these experience I learned that we have a social responsibility to make sure that these evil people stay behind bars, Its because people would not like to be bothered in their day to day activities that petty criminals get away as no one press charges, so I said to myself, I would follow thru with this and make sure I do the right thing.
Ok next day passes, I call the office that i'll be taking the day off , I drive down to the Barangay hall with jonjon my housemate. The Barangay hall was a typical one, near a school in a densely populated area , actually the barangay hall there was a lot better than the one's I'd been too, men were in uniform and looks a bit professional for barangay standards that is. There I saw Joseph , 12 years old, hair all curly and unbrushed, dark skinned , looks as if he's been plying the streets for quite a while. He hasn't eaten since the night and could not look anybody straight in the eye. I felt sorry for him,but I had to confront him to make him realize the gravity of the situation. I met his mother first , she was very apologetic but more to my shock was that she was willing to turn over her son to the DSWD to instill some values in him. Her story was like something out of a radio drama, labandera living with 4 children, Joseph was from her first husband. Both husbands have gone now. Joseph would end up to be the troublemaker, she told me stories how she would try to beat some discipline into him, to try to plead that he stay in school and how Joseph would runaway with his barkada in the wee hours of the night, his mother would then scour from house to house trying to find him at 2am in the morning . Her mother told me that she was giving up as working , taking care of her other 3 kids and constantly stressing over joseph was being too much for her, she was willing to turnover her son to the DSWD.
We waited for an hour for paperwork and stuff in the barangay hall, I kept on scolding and confronting joseph, ..poor kids.. trying to do some mindgames with him.. I told him how pitiful he look and that his other 3 cohorts were now having fun and laughing at his expense, how he should pity his mother for what she has been going thru, how he is wasting his time away, how pissed off I was and how lucky he was that I didnt shoot him right there (I was just bluffin). I did this on and on and on as though it was an interogation hoping it would shock the bad out of him , traumatize him enough to realize his wrong ways. I felt bad in doing this , like a big bully, but sometimes tough love needs to happen.
Finally we went on out way to the DSWD office in taguig, everyone was suprised at his age, 12yo, they all felt bad on how someone so young could easily fall. We talked to the head of that section, a woman in her 40's and she told us that she couldnt take in Joseph as he is still quite young and it should be the parents who needs take responsibility on this , that the children should not be passed to the government if they start to fall. We ended up in a stalemate , on one hand the barangays and village security I was with said that this kid has been a constant trouble maker and should be given a lesson, the mothers are not equipped to take care of him, she's a single mother with 4 children . The DSWD head argues that we are not a rich country , boystown is overcrowded and she fears that Joseph will turn to worst if he gets sent there. She told us, boystown is not a orphanage type place, its bilibid for kids, children boil soap in place of rugby,the parents should take care of the kids. We could easily throw in issues of overpopulation and the now popular birth control issue and we got a whole editorial. We ended up following procedure, if the parents can be found, then the parents should be liable, we should go back to the barangay , get the other parents of the accused and settle things.
We went back to Dudes steakhouse and treated the barangay guys, even the mom and joseph to lunch. We tried to continuously get joseph to realize stuff, I even talked to his mom that I would scold her in front of her son just to make him feel bad. I think it worked.
Next step was to venture into the Squatters area in our village and convince the other parents of the robbers to go with us to the barangay hall. I was apprehensive to go, I asked the Tanod wether it would be safe as we were going to the "looban" and look for the other 3 parents. The driver of our landlord went with us who is also in the navy, he was in uniform so that kinda gave me a little bit sense of security although I would have been greatly reassured if he was packing a sidearm. Visions of FPJ movies came to mind where people would pop out of nowhere carrying sumpaks and pana's.. I tried not to think about it and just kept on thinking to just be alert, ready for anything. The 2 Tanods went first as we came in a bit late.. they turned to a corner then disapeared somewhere, I tried to follow together with the driver , we were on foot and the area at least wasn't as gloomy as the slums of tondo, it was more like a barrio look if anything else. Since we lost the tanods in the maze of houses, we waited in a bit of open area , there were 3 children playing tanching, kids more or less as old as Joseph. A few minutes later, the mother of one of the kids came carrying a big leather belt, she was shouting furiously at her son "Bat ayaw mo pumasok, walang mangyayari sa yo sa tanching ! Walang laman utak mo! Nagpapakahirap ako pagaralin ka tapos tatakas ka sa skwela para mag tanching!" , she shouted and shouted until the kid walked away from his playmates in embarassment, seemingly pissed at his mom for being annoying. I suddenly remembered joseph, same story.. mother working hard .. child not wanting to study. I suddenly thought his must be a thing with almost all the children . This was an example of the effect of the environment on the children, they had no role model to look up to and they showed little respect to their mothers who I would guess never had the chance to study or complete their studies.
Few moments after the tanods finally came out of the small alley's with the other parents in tow, I was relieved as we didnt have any trouble with them, I think it was mostly due to Joseph's mother imploring them to cooperate so that she didnt end up facing all the problems alone. Thank goodness as well that jonjon , my housemate , pushed to treat the mother to lunch together with the other barangay tanods as he felt bad for her. We ended up paying for her lunch, her sisters and Josephs as well.
On the barangay hall , we discussed with the parents, they told us that all the other children had not gone home, that they had ran away. Sadly all of them agreed that if the kids needs to be surrendered to the DSWD, then thats ok with them. Same story with all of them, lots of kids with 1 black sheep. The DSWD head suggested that we file staffa cases on the parents as we cant file anything with the children coz of their ages, so face to face with the other parents I tried to give my terms , they agreed. What we really wanted was for the parents to present to me their children so I could give them a good scolding and ask them to do some community service. Its either that or they pay us 25% of the cost at least else I would file charges against them. They had a week to get back to us. I was doubtful that anything would come to this.
We'll I wasnt about to file charges on the parents , that was a total bluff as I couldnt send these guys to jail , what of their families. It helped as well that they were nice looking people and was terribly embarassed of the ordeal. I doubt as well if they could pay the money, we actually didnt care much for the money as it was too small of an amount to replace what was lost, we just wanted to teach them a lesson . So at the end of all of this I didnt have much hope on getting any justice. I was hoping at least one of the kids would straighten up due to the stress he endured. One of the kids who was missing was a girl for crying out loud. So what did I learn? I learned I should be happy at least with the good stuff I enjoy. To be sent face to face with the harshness of reality really puts things into perpective. To be happy with what I have and what I got. I remembered Fr. Ben Villote, whom I researched on for the Blessed Theresa Award. On all barrios and areas he went to he would organize seminars , theaters, choirs, and other activities for the slum areas and he would transform that area to a pleasant place to live. He was the role model , and he gave the children and the people a venue to show their skills. The parent of joseph wasn't bad , probably not as smart but still as loving, so it was probably the environment that was pushing him to a life of crime. There was nothing to look forward to in the environment, I felt bad for him. I felt bad as well for the parents as I see in them that they really do not want this kind of life for their kids, I think a lot of the parents in that squatters area doesnt. There was probably a few hundred mothers there daily runs after their children to make sure they stay in school . I didn't know or met any of the other kids so I couldnt tell if they were really bad or just misguided. I felt bad as I know these problems are solveable only on a macro scale , that there is a similar scenario like this all over the country probabl happening right now. That to solve this problem so many things need to be fixed first, like corruption, mindset, culture, etc etc. I felt bad mostly as I lost 2 good watches! Pinaghirapan ko sa Japan ang isa non! Damn!!
sorry ang haba, sorry rin if there are typos and stuff. kakatamad icheck.. ang haba eh!
