Not long ago, two years to be exact, I blogged about these men on two wheels that ply Metro Manila in droves nowadays. Kindly click this link so you’ll know what I am talking about.
In our more than seventeen years of stay here in our subdivision, this is the first time that our security (my family and I) was threatened by a crazed-gun-toting man who calls himself “police” as if the mere mention of the word would scare the living daylights out of you instead of protecting you from the harmful elements of the society. Do you think this is normal? Or maybe it has become the norm in our world instead that these men exist. Evil lurks everywhere. I am not writing about this to scare everyone, rather it’s just to make you aware that there are people out there who earn their keeps by doing something unacceptable and scary at most. You’re no longer safe even in your own homes or right in front of it. Generally, our place is peaceful, our immediate neighbors are like extended family to us and some of them are nodding acquaintances who we all know by face. What happened last night though makes me think otherwise.
My son was on his way home last night at around 8:15pm (still early), just about a few meters away from our front gate when he was accosted by a man in a motorcycle and asked him if he has seen a boy who allegedly snatched a cellphone. Their exact conversation was:
“May nakita ka bang bata na tumakbo rito, nag-agaw ng cellphone?” The man was on a motorbike wearing a dark helmet. My son answered “wala eh” at the same time went on his way to our gate. Then the man said “police ako” and repeated the same question and asked where he lives. My son pointed to our house which is right behind them. Then he asked to see his cellphone and my son showed it to him. He snatched it at the same time pointing a gun at him and a few seconds later fired the gun he was holding into the air. There is a sari-sari store right next to our house and someone saw what happened. The latter recalled that the supposed “police” shouted “takbo” so even the bystander ran for cover. To cut the story short, the security team of our subdivision arrived and later a police and some of the officers of our village association. Earlier on, they told us that someone was also victimized in the town proper and they ran after the motorcycle riding hold-upper. And one of the security officers said that it has been the usual story told by previous victims of snatching in other Rizal towns in the past two years. My question is, why is the gunman still at large? Based on the description of the bystander, it seemed that it was the same individual who did the firing. My son was not able to recognize his face because he wore a dark helmet. The thing is, one of our neighbors in the next street joined us and asked, “dito po ba galing yung putok ng baril?” Everyone answered in the affirmative. He said further that the bullet passed through the plywood covering the vacant aircon unit in their bedroom and their baby was there inside. Good thing, the baby’s toys cushioned the impact of the slug. What if the bullet pierced the glass windows of their bedroom, it might have hurt the child. The moment I heard this, I felt like I was walking on air. It was too much to hear that an innocent baby could have been hurt.
We see violence every day on television or hear it over the radio but when you are the victim, it’s a different story. I urge everyone to be cautious always in their surroundings and when they see suspicious-acting men in bikes. Most accidents that are reported nowadays are on motorbikes. I have nothing against people who use this type of conveyance but there are riders out there who use them for victimizing innocent people.
I also urge our subdivision officers and security personnel to strictly impose “no helmet” policy inside the subdivision when they let passersby access our roads. I urge my fellow homeowners to be alert all the time and report any incident that affects our security as a whole. May this be a lesson to all of us that we should not be complacent even if we are familiar with a place, we’ll never know when something like this happens again. The scenario keeps playing in my head. It’s quite different when you are divested of your belongings like cellphones but to be threatened by a gun?
What is happening to the world?
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I am listening to it now and I smile and say in my heart, Merry Christmas Dad!
