Sometimes it does make you wonder who the menaces in the society truly are. On one hand, you have people damning the poor for causing more wretchedness to an already wretched society. On the other, you have those who tag the wealthy as the propagators of mischief. Petty crimes for the poor and behemoth crimes for the rich, some would even say. Still on one hand, you have thieves living in shacks in some obscure part of the urban metropolis, waiting for the night to settle before they knife the life out of their next unsuspecting victim, probably in one of the dim alleys of the city. And still on the other, you have golfers whacking one another's gut, drunk with power and money and believing that nobody can bully them around, even their own kind; and Alabang boys in a state of drug-induced nirvana, their families in cahoots with the authorities to liberate their children from the hands of the law, to name a few.
Sometimes it does make you wonder who the menaces in the society truly are. On one hand, you have government agents whose primary task is to run after drug peddlers and users and to put them behind bars. Some of these law enforcers fail miserably in fulfilling their duties while some of them do so at will in exchange for a handsome reward beneath the table. Still on the other, you have illustrious families that luster with stench for coddling drug addicts in their circle, even pushing them to the extent of making a living out of it by selling it like a commodity. But I will not dwell too long on these. Tons have already been written about their gross gluttony and greed.
Whoever the real menaces are, it's discomforting to know that we are no longer able to confidently say that the law enforcers truly enforce the law and that the crooks get to spend their time in jail. Or maybe they never did anyway. It's as if we know that we do not know. Or probably worse, which is that we do not know that we know. Either way, the more we know, the more we know that the more we know, the less we know. The more we know about the thugs and thieves in our midst, the less our understanding becomes of how large a bastion of thugs and thieves are truly out there.
I recall a time when I was in second year college. It was summer break and I decided to do a part-time job. My uncle had a pet shop and all I had to do was to tend to the purchases of the costumers in exchange for "beer" money, as I call it. The amount was not too handsome, but it was enough to get by at a time when there's nothing to do but to wallow in sleep. One afternoon a man dropped by at the shop as I sat behind the desk overlooking the street just in front of the small store. I was alone manning the shop. He approached me, asked a few things, reached for his mobile phone in his pocket, dialled a certain number and said that he is calling my uncle. The man said my uncle already approved about the payment for one of the dogs he ordered recently, and so without thinking I handed the man a sum of money, the value of which still escapes my memory today. Needless to say, the man was a fraud and it was hours thereafter when I realized how Icarus came swooping down to the seas from the skies; either I was stupid enough to have forgotten not to trust strangers or I was stupid enough to have forgotten not to trust strangers. He was a big man and I swear he could have easily taken me down or knifed my stomach into two until my intestines bleed and blurt out had he only willed to do so.
Budol budol gang, they call them.
That was a bitter-sweet moment in my life. Bitter because, apparently, my charitable deed to the total stranger was not the kind which Jesus Christ and nuns and priest and monks would have approved of entirely. Worse, so would my uncle. Or something to that effect. And sweet because, alas, for the first time in my life I was able to prove to myself that such a thing does not only happen in the movies and in the evening news. It's one thing to watch these things happen from the comfort of your television set. It's quite another to feel and see and smell these things happen right before your eyes and nose and ears and skin without you even noticing that the deed is already being done. It struck me hard and deep. For sure, I'll be carrying that memory to the grave. Who knows? Maybe even beyond. But that's something else.
It also made me realize one more poignant thing, which comes in the form of a question: how much could the victims of heinous crimes have felt as they submit to the pangs of wallowing in misery? A mother's son is mugged to his last breath by a group of bandits in a dark alley, a father's wife is crippled by the iron fists of her employer somewhere in a distant land where milk and money are supposed to thrive, a brother's sister is raped and, turning lifeless, is dumped in an obscure landfill where flies and garbage litter the area—from where I sit, I can only begin to imagine the scale of angst and anger, of pain and suffering that suck the happiness out of their lives. I can only begin to imagine how it feels to lose a loved one in the merciless hands of those who see through death and stare at it without guilt or being pricked—no, hammered—in the conscience.
I can only begin to imagine because little do I know about how it feels to be there. I can hardly empathize, I can only sympathize. Heaven forbid, I would not know where and how to pick myself up if the same thing would happen to me or to my family.
Which brings us back to how we sometimes wonder who the real menaces in the society truly are. Policemen going berserk and firing at anyone within range is old news. So are madmen and robbers who carry bags of money or bags of human flesh, whichever they prefer, and repeating the same offense many times over. Politicians doing the dirty job beneath the desk is old news. So are drug lords and syndicates of petty and behemoth crimes doing their dirty laundry atop the table, in plain sight for everyone to see. There's no telling who is who, or which is which. If this is how our society has become, who are we to turn to when all hell breaks loose, assuming it still hasn't?
No wonder ours is a deeply religious country; only the God can save us now.
Sometimes it does make you wonder who the menaces in the society truly are. On one hand, you have government agents whose primary task is to run after drug peddlers and users and to put them behind bars. Some of these law enforcers fail miserably in fulfilling their duties while some of them do so at will in exchange for a handsome reward beneath the table. Still on the other, you have illustrious families that luster with stench for coddling drug addicts in their circle, even pushing them to the extent of making a living out of it by selling it like a commodity. But I will not dwell too long on these. Tons have already been written about their gross gluttony and greed.
Whoever the real menaces are, it's discomforting to know that we are no longer able to confidently say that the law enforcers truly enforce the law and that the crooks get to spend their time in jail. Or maybe they never did anyway. It's as if we know that we do not know. Or probably worse, which is that we do not know that we know. Either way, the more we know, the more we know that the more we know, the less we know. The more we know about the thugs and thieves in our midst, the less our understanding becomes of how large a bastion of thugs and thieves are truly out there.
I recall a time when I was in second year college. It was summer break and I decided to do a part-time job. My uncle had a pet shop and all I had to do was to tend to the purchases of the costumers in exchange for "beer" money, as I call it. The amount was not too handsome, but it was enough to get by at a time when there's nothing to do but to wallow in sleep. One afternoon a man dropped by at the shop as I sat behind the desk overlooking the street just in front of the small store. I was alone manning the shop. He approached me, asked a few things, reached for his mobile phone in his pocket, dialled a certain number and said that he is calling my uncle. The man said my uncle already approved about the payment for one of the dogs he ordered recently, and so without thinking I handed the man a sum of money, the value of which still escapes my memory today. Needless to say, the man was a fraud and it was hours thereafter when I realized how Icarus came swooping down to the seas from the skies; either I was stupid enough to have forgotten not to trust strangers or I was stupid enough to have forgotten not to trust strangers. He was a big man and I swear he could have easily taken me down or knifed my stomach into two until my intestines bleed and blurt out had he only willed to do so.
Budol budol gang, they call them.
That was a bitter-sweet moment in my life. Bitter because, apparently, my charitable deed to the total stranger was not the kind which Jesus Christ and nuns and priest and monks would have approved of entirely. Worse, so would my uncle. Or something to that effect. And sweet because, alas, for the first time in my life I was able to prove to myself that such a thing does not only happen in the movies and in the evening news. It's one thing to watch these things happen from the comfort of your television set. It's quite another to feel and see and smell these things happen right before your eyes and nose and ears and skin without you even noticing that the deed is already being done. It struck me hard and deep. For sure, I'll be carrying that memory to the grave. Who knows? Maybe even beyond. But that's something else.
It also made me realize one more poignant thing, which comes in the form of a question: how much could the victims of heinous crimes have felt as they submit to the pangs of wallowing in misery? A mother's son is mugged to his last breath by a group of bandits in a dark alley, a father's wife is crippled by the iron fists of her employer somewhere in a distant land where milk and money are supposed to thrive, a brother's sister is raped and, turning lifeless, is dumped in an obscure landfill where flies and garbage litter the area—from where I sit, I can only begin to imagine the scale of angst and anger, of pain and suffering that suck the happiness out of their lives. I can only begin to imagine how it feels to lose a loved one in the merciless hands of those who see through death and stare at it without guilt or being pricked—no, hammered—in the conscience.
I can only begin to imagine because little do I know about how it feels to be there. I can hardly empathize, I can only sympathize. Heaven forbid, I would not know where and how to pick myself up if the same thing would happen to me or to my family.
Which brings us back to how we sometimes wonder who the real menaces in the society truly are. Policemen going berserk and firing at anyone within range is old news. So are madmen and robbers who carry bags of money or bags of human flesh, whichever they prefer, and repeating the same offense many times over. Politicians doing the dirty job beneath the desk is old news. So are drug lords and syndicates of petty and behemoth crimes doing their dirty laundry atop the table, in plain sight for everyone to see. There's no telling who is who, or which is which. If this is how our society has become, who are we to turn to when all hell breaks loose, assuming it still hasn't?
No wonder ours is a deeply religious country; only the God can save us now.
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