Tales of my city
I live in an area that is no stranger to crime. My car and my father’s bus have been burglarized in the past, our stereos taken. Things have been taken from my parents’ house as well—from jewelry to cellphones, even television remote commanders and my niece’s piggy bank.
Some thieves do it to buy food once their stolen items are fenced. Some do it to finance their illegal drug addiction. I blame poverty the most.
In civilized countries, we seek the police to help solve crimes and help prevent them from happening. The Philippines having illusions of civility sometimes rely on the Philippine National Police. They are, after all, our “servants and protectors” as their cruisers loudly proclaim with chipping paint.
I was given a demonstration of how valuable the police are to us these past few days. Three teenage kids held up our neighborhood internet shop the other day and carted away the grand sum of a thousand pesos and a cellphone belonging to a high school student playing nooky and online games instead of attending class. It happened at about three o’clock in the afternoon.
The police were summoned and immediately knew which house to encircle. Apparently, they had their eyes on a group of kids who already had police records. Sure enough, the suspects were there and were collared.
A kid protested his arrest too much and was pistol whipped on his young forehead. His injury generously spurted warm blood all over his shirt. All three were tied up like pigs about to be led to the slaughterhouse. The officers used ropes and not handcuffs
No Miranda Rights were read either. Instead, the police shouted to the gathered people watching the reality TV action that our community should be grateful. The notorious hold-uppers have been caught.
To call backup, the police had to ask which houses had telephone lines so they could call their precinct. No radios, no 911s, no cellphones for these officers. My mom offered ours.
And so the suspects were hauled to jail. I later learned from neighbors that the youthful gang’s reported leader was an abandoned kid who lived with friends, one of whom was our neighbor.
What I heard is that the shop owner did not press charges. So the suspects were released at about ten o’clock that evening.
Morning came and I was glued on the early morning news program on television. While sipping my non-Nestle’ coffee, a vaguely familiar face flashed onscreen followed by the newsreader’s announcement that the kid on the photo was shot dead by motorcycle riding men wearing ski masks last night. He was on his way home from the precinct, having been released not more than 30 minutes earlier.
The police have a term for it. They call it “byahe”—suspected criminals given vigilante justice by the officers themselves. Perhaps they thought that the kid is already incorrigible and it is to society’s benefit that they are erased from the face of this earth.
Tonight, our community is holding a wake for a 17-year old kid who was never given a chance at life.
