A poor kid I know (from a family who was poor ever since the beginning of time) in my hometown was thrown in jail yesterday. He's 20 years young. He's about the same age as my youngest brother Marco, who in a few years time will become a Doctor. A DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine), but a Doctor nonetheless. Anyway, this kid, whose real name I can't remember or do not know at all, goes by the name of Jomar (probably Jose Mari, but I could be wrong). He's one of those kids who saw too many Robin Padilla movies as a young boy. And like all jerk-offs who thinks he's a "Bad Boy," he ends up being a loser, like 75% of all Filipinos think what they are, if you have seen the results of the latest Pulse Asia survey.
Apparently, Jomar together with another young thug @ Brando, beat the shit out of two other kids in broad daylight in front of the Public Market the other day. According to some kids I have talked to this afternoon, Jomar started the hit with a solid asero (alloy knuckles) punch to the face which cracked the face of his opponent. After that first hit, he and @ Brando pummeled and mauled the two other kids until their faces were as plump as tomatoes and their cheeks as fat and red like siopao with hotsauce poured all over. Unlike @ Brando who fled the scene almost instantaneously after the skirmish, Jomar went on to tambay and chit-chat with some other local kids, perhaps to convey the story of his great victory. Sure as hell, he was picked-up by the cops. By the time you read this, and in the words of a PAO (Public Attorney's Office) lawyer I know, "he's still languishing in jail." That's all detention and convicted prisoners do: languish in jail. Funny word, really--languish. I'm guessing its etymology would reveal that such is the by-product of the combination of the two words "long" and "anguish." "Long anguish" has been shortened to become "languish". Truth is, however, languishing may have stemmed from "laughing" and "fishing" for all I know. Who knows these things?
I have only known Jomar when he was a young kid. Since I have studied for most of my life in Manila, I only saw this "mini-goon" during the summers. I have always thought he was an asshole; the type that wouldn't easily obey my commands whenever I gave one. He always kept the change whenever I ask him to buy something for me. At times, when he sees me, he turns away in order to evade the chore he would have to perform for me. He did not refuse me straight out, as no kid in our neighborhood could have outwardly refused to obey me or my brother David, like no man in our shitty little backward town can openly refuse my father or my uncles. As early as then, I realized that I would have very little use of him in the future if he ever grows up.
Last year (or maybe early this year I can't really remember for sure), my mama took pity on the damned kid and asked my father if he can give him a job of sorts, so that Jomar could help out his family even a little bit. Jomar was hired to be a peon in the LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) refilling plant. After two weeks or so, Jomar gave Papa a head-ache. Why? Because Jomar is an asshole. My father can not and does not tolerate assholes, especially in the business. Pa gave the order and Jomar packed his bags and went back home to return to being a small time hood. He might have stayed there at least a little bit longer notwithstanding the fact that he is lazy as a turtle (my apologies to turtles and all other amphibians who might take offense with my statement), but the darn kid even made an enemy of one of Pa's own crew. Pa told me that kid wanted to die so quick, but he wouldn't have it under his watch. There are just some folks who anybody can't make a decent man out of. He is what he is.
Apparently, Jomar together with another young thug @ Brando, beat the shit out of two other kids in broad daylight in front of the Public Market the other day. According to some kids I have talked to this afternoon, Jomar started the hit with a solid asero (alloy knuckles) punch to the face which cracked the face of his opponent. After that first hit, he and @ Brando pummeled and mauled the two other kids until their faces were as plump as tomatoes and their cheeks as fat and red like siopao with hotsauce poured all over. Unlike @ Brando who fled the scene almost instantaneously after the skirmish, Jomar went on to tambay and chit-chat with some other local kids, perhaps to convey the story of his great victory. Sure as hell, he was picked-up by the cops. By the time you read this, and in the words of a PAO (Public Attorney's Office) lawyer I know, "he's still languishing in jail." That's all detention and convicted prisoners do: languish in jail. Funny word, really--languish. I'm guessing its etymology would reveal that such is the by-product of the combination of the two words "long" and "anguish." "Long anguish" has been shortened to become "languish". Truth is, however, languishing may have stemmed from "laughing" and "fishing" for all I know. Who knows these things?
I have only known Jomar when he was a young kid. Since I have studied for most of my life in Manila, I only saw this "mini-goon" during the summers. I have always thought he was an asshole; the type that wouldn't easily obey my commands whenever I gave one. He always kept the change whenever I ask him to buy something for me. At times, when he sees me, he turns away in order to evade the chore he would have to perform for me. He did not refuse me straight out, as no kid in our neighborhood could have outwardly refused to obey me or my brother David, like no man in our shitty little backward town can openly refuse my father or my uncles. As early as then, I realized that I would have very little use of him in the future if he ever grows up.
Last year (or maybe early this year I can't really remember for sure), my mama took pity on the damned kid and asked my father if he can give him a job of sorts, so that Jomar could help out his family even a little bit. Jomar was hired to be a peon in the LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) refilling plant. After two weeks or so, Jomar gave Papa a head-ache. Why? Because Jomar is an asshole. My father can not and does not tolerate assholes, especially in the business. Pa gave the order and Jomar packed his bags and went back home to return to being a small time hood. He might have stayed there at least a little bit longer notwithstanding the fact that he is lazy as a turtle (my apologies to turtles and all other amphibians who might take offense with my statement), but the darn kid even made an enemy of one of Pa's own crew. Pa told me that kid wanted to die so quick, but he wouldn't have it under his watch. There are just some folks who anybody can't make a decent man out of. He is what he is.
Jomar is not in jail now because he cracked that kid's face wide open; nor because unlike his friend @ Brando, he did not go underground a little bit after the hit so the cops wouldn't find him as easily as they did; and neither is he still in jail because the justice system is really tough. Jomar is in jail right now because he's poor and stupid. One cannot afford to be stupid when he's poor. And one cannot suffer to be poor when he's stupid. Being poor and stupid is a lethal mix.
Jomar went to jail because he did the hit against the wrong guys, at the wrong place at the wrong time. That's because he's stupid. If he weren't, he could have known that his "victims" are the nephews of a policeman, while his father is a mere tree-trimmer and ocassional "if-in-the-mood" fisherman; he wouldn't have made the hit in front of the public market, where everyone there saw them; and he wouldn't have scheduled the hit in broad day-light when everyone who saw the melee could easily make them out in a line-up. Jomar is still in jail because he is poor as a rat (this time, my apologies go to the rodent class). His family couldn't afford to even post bail, much more pay that the family of the "victims" what they are asking for. I heard that the sum is in the tune of 80 G's. I know a few guys who pay that much in a night in a posh QC night club, but even if Jomar's father walked the entire length of EDSA using his hands with his feet up in the air, and his mother turn to a whore in a cheap local brothel, they couldn't raise that money. You won't find more than 25C coins in the streets and they don't accept broads whose belly-buttons and nipples are of the same height and level even in the cheapest of all casas.
Being young, and therefore sometimes illogically merciful to the fates of others, I related all of this to my father. He said "Let him be." Without any other word, I understood completely. Jomar wouldn't have any use for us whatsoever as I have feared. His only talent is contained in his fists, and that, we have more than enough of. Que sera sera.
What is the lesson to be learned from all of this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
