Reading Ang Kape ni Lattex, who pointed to the blog of his wife, it occurred to me: why isn’t crime more of an issue in the elections? His wife, in Take You There, talks about her experience with the “bubblegum gang”:
…Then, the guy on my left also pointed out the bubble gum on my hair. I was getting angry then and distracted and I believe that’s the time, the guy on my left took my wallet and cellphone. Nasigawan ko pa yung naglagay ng bubble gum sa buhok ko. Things happened so fast. They suddenly all went down the bus at Magallanes before the overpass. I only realized that my wallet and cellphone was taken when I checked my bag when we were at Evangelista St. They were good cause my bag didn’t have any slit. There I lost my wallet with my ATM, Jonjon’s credit card, SSS ID, Community Tax Certificate and my phone with lots of contact numbers on it.
Now almost everyone, I think, sooner or later has a similar story to tell. Regardless of what kind of crime story it is: side view mirrors being stolen, bags being snatched, cellphones being stolen, taxicabs held up, jeepney passengers held up, etc., etc.
And again: why hasn’t it become a campaign issue?
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8 Feedbacks on "Anti-bubblegum gang vote"
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Jon Limjap
manolo,
Thanks for bringing this up.
While I consider that what happened to my wife as relatively “lucky” in terms of the means and outcome (she wasn’t hurt, nor did the thieves at any point try to hurt her), it indeed is unfortunate that none of our politicians have this in their agenda. Except perhaps on Ping Lacson’s wherein “peace and order” is a “given”.
I don’t know if it’s right or not, but my wife didn’t even bother to have the incident blottered. She felt (and I agree with her) that it was futile to report the crime.
I wonder if there’s anything politicians can actually do to reverse that perception.
eugene dizon
my wife had a simillar insident happen to her on a jeepney the guy on her left spat out and apparently hit her hair which the guy in front pointed out and even offerred her some tissue paper to wipe it off, while all of this was happening the guy on her left picked through her bag and got her cellphone and wallet. this insident really left my wife scared.
Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX » Blog Archive » Beware of the Bubblegum Gang
[…] 2: Manuel L. Quezon III, quoting Melynn’s post, questions why crime is not on the agenda of most candidates in the coming elections. Posted in Buhay, Melynn RSS 2.0 mitch May 3rd, […]
Jim
It hasn’t become an issue because it’s a regular fact of life in the Philippines and most of the politicians don’t ride a jeepney or a taxi or a bus–they can never and will never ever experience that, well unless they are murdered due to excessive corruption or otherwise.
It hasn’t become an election issue because they can’t do anything about it–people are just resigned to the fact that they have to live with it just as they have to live with corruption, private armies, people shooting people because of cellphones, murky rivers, polluted airs, underfunded education, the list could go on and on and on yet these would never be an election issue because they can do nothing.
cocoy
*nods at jim’s comment*
in this country we expect to be mugged or worst, all the time. then again, it could be a case of russian roulette, no matter how careful you are, when you’re out of luck, you’re out of it.
as everyone here has already said: another way of looking at it is, we don’t expect things to change anyway… so why bother caring about it in an election?
then again, this i think is more of a local issue, than a national one. crime needs to be addressed locally.
tonio
That is why Cebu and Davao has had death squads. Since the government does not act on these crimes, people will act on their own. And when these criminals are being killed, some politicians will then used them to gain popularity,using ‘human rights violation’ issues,when they have themselves to blame
mlq3
Sad to say, here’s another eyewitness account, this time, of a hold-up:
http://badoodles.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/devils-exist-whether-you-believe-or-not/
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