Mugged

October 5, 2010

I was mugged, and just like all victims of cheating, I never thought it would happen to me. I always believed it happens only to people who are naïve, careless, or have a birthmark in the butt. I believed I was smart enough not to fall prey on cheap street crooks.

            It happened in Cotabato City, while I was on my way home from Cebu City to Sultan Kudarat Province. It is not the usual route commuters take, but I decided to play hobo. Before the mugging, though, nothing untoward happened even if I didn’t know which towns to go to and what modes of transportation to take. I had passed through four provinces relying only on the kindness of strangers and the general map of Mindanao I had tried to imprint on my mind.

            I didn’t need to spend a night in Cotabato City. But I wanted to. I wanted to sit at the plaza at dusk waxing nostalgic. I have special memories with the city. It is where I had my first stick of cigarette (at the old age of twenty-one), where I won in an academic contest in college, and where I nearly died in a manhole when I was five.

            I also imagined myself waxing nationalistic. Cotabato City for me is the epitome of the Philippines. It is a melting pot and probably the non-Tagalog area where the national language is most widely spoken. It had once been an economic and political powerhouse in the region, much like the way the Philippines was among its Asian neighbors. Due to corruption and violence, Cotabato today is a decaying city, surpassed and replaced by Koronadal. Like the country, Cotabato has a glorious past, a troubled present and an uncertain future.

            The predators, though, did not wait for me to sit at the plaza before pouncing. I was mugged a short while after alighting from the van I was riding—in broad daylight and in the middle of a busy street.

            “You have to pay,” an unkempt youth said to me in Cebuano.

            “Huh?” I said, still walking.

            “If you don’t pay, I’ll stab you.”

            It dawned on me that I was being extorted. I felt insulted. The rascal had taken me for someone fresh off the boat. His assumption, though, was not exactly unfounded. I was grimy and sweaty, and I did not seem to know how to speak Tagalog. Earlier, he had approached me and talked to me in Tagalog, offering for help, but I declined, starting my sentences in Tagalog and lapsing into Cebuano. (I’m Ilonggo, however.)

            I looked at the guy’s hand. His fingers were wrapped around a blue ballpen, which was pointed upward, not at me. I noticed that his voice was quivering, too. As he was obviously bluffing, I ignored him.

            “This is Cotabato City, I’m telling you,” he continued. “A lot of people are killed here.”

            I nearly rolled my eyes. If I believed in such baloney, I wouldn’t be there in the first place. One reason why I took the Ozamis-Cotabato-Isulan route, not the usual Cagayan-Malaybalay-Tacurong, was that I wanted to tell people I know that this side of Mindanao is not as dangerous as it appears in the media. I felt the road was safe for me because I was an ordinary traveler, not a journalist, foreigner, or politician.

            The mugger kept muttering threats. I scanned the area for policemen, but I didn’t see any. I thought of running toward a group of people and asking for help, but I was too embarrassed to shout. I thought of telling the guy I’m the mayor’s nephew, but I considered name-dropping, even in such a situation, beneath me.

            My options were running out, so I sized up the mugger if I could take him down mano a mano. I hate to admit this, but I ditched the idea in no time. Though he was not bigger than me, he was taller (as most people are). And I only had a boiled egg and a roll of Maranao sweets for lunch. And my heavy bags hampered my movements; even simply running away would be difficult.

            In frustration I asked, “How much?”

            “One hundred,” he said.

            “Haah?” I said, my voice slightly higher. For a thief whose only weapon was a ballpen, I thought he was asking too much.

            “Just fifty then,” he bargained.

            I took out my wallet and flipped it open, tilting it away so he could not see the contents. I took out a fifty-peso bill and handed it to him.

            Then I noticed another boy that had been riding a rusty sikad (a bicycle with an attached carriage) alongside us. I wasn’t able to connect him with the mugger until they exchanged a few words in Maguindanaon.

            The first kid turned to me again and said, “You have to pay.”

            I frowned at him, implying that I thought the matter had been settled.
            “Give me some more,” he said.

            “F—— you,” I muttered. It was the first time I uttered the words to anyone.

            “Fifty pesos,” he said.

            Earlier, I was just irked, but this time I was starting to become truly nervous—not because the crooks turned out to be Muslims but because they seemed persistent in milking me. But still I thought they were not thuggish enough to deserve another fifty pesos. I fished out, instead, all the coins in my pocket. They glinted in the sun like gold nuggets.

            “That will do,” the bastard said, and I dropped the coins in his hands.
            He hopped on the sikad and they sped off.

            The muggers had appeared and disappeared in just a minute, maybe even less. I continued walking, wondering if what happened really happened. When I spotted a lodge, I deposited my bags and walked to the nearest police station.

            I had no intention of getting my money back. What I lost was a pittance; I had spent much greater amounts on stupid things. But I was worried that if I didn’t do anything, those boys and others like them would keep on prowling the streets of Cotabato City thinking they could do anything with impunity. What more would they do if they cornered someone in a dark alley? If they had a knife or a gun? And if their voices no longer quivered when uttering threats? Ironically, I wanted to prove to those kids that Cotabato City is not lawless, as they wanted me and their other victims to believe.

            The policemen were more helpful and friendly than I expected. They brought me back to the street in a patrol car. But the kids, of course, were wise enough not to hang around. I had to settle with just having the incident recorded in the police blotter.

            I went back to the inn and locked myself inside the room, seeking catharsis from what happened by writing about it. And as I was writing the first draft of this, I realized what the mugger was holding was not a mere ballpen. It was a little too fat and did not look like any ballpen I had seen or used before. The glinting silver metal I had mistaken for the ball point might actually be the tip of a tiny icepick-like weapon. I was in real danger after all, and my ignorance gave me a false sense of courage.

            What happened could be enough for me to swear not to go back to Cotabato City again. But I refuse to be cowed. To the hooligans this I say: For the two of you, I’ve had a dozen people, both Muslims and Christians, who helped me along the way; they proved to me that indeed strangers are friends we have yet to know. You may have trampled on my ego, but you failed in a lot of other things. You failed to ruin my entire trip. You failed to arouse bigotry in me. And you failed to remove my special attachment with Cotabato City. I’m still hoping the city, like the country, will get its act together and restore its past glory. As for you, I hope you change your ways—or you can find people who will help change your ways—before it’s too late.

And one last thing: whatever you bought my money with, I hope you choked on it.