Face to face with crime

Face to face with crime
By: Dennis Gorecho

“SIGE, tumakbo ka na ng mabilis at huwag kang lilingon at baka barilin pa kita (Run, Run fast and don’t turn back or I’ll shoot you).” The words could be apart of a movie script, but these were in fact words of my abductors last August 23,1997, a Saturday. To me, words of freedom.

Freedom from the anxiety that any second I would be dumped dead in that highly secluded area somewhere in barangay Ugong, Valenzuela. The possibility that there will be my wake, and not the wake of Lola Rosa Henson, the first Filpina comfort woman to come out in the open, which I had planned to go to that night in Pasay City.

I should have followed my instinct that night. I had planned to get out of our moot court session at the UP College of Law earlier than 9 p.m. so that I could go to Lola Rosa’s’place early. But I stayed a little longer so I asked Joyce Bondoc, a classmate (male despite his name), if I could ride with him up to Pasay. He agreed but said he would take the Manila route via Nagtahan since Falor Vargas, a female classmate, would also hitch a ride with him.

We were five when we left UP at around 9:10 p.m.- me, Joyce Vargas, Fernando “Ando” Ocampo, and Noreen Gocon.

Noreen alighted at Kalayaan Avenue and we proceeded to Timog. I thought of getting off at Philcoa or Edsa and taje the bus toward Baclaran but I instead remained in the car.

We turned left at Scout Torillo. The road, lined with the usual high wall of big houses of the area, was dark.

Near the end of Scout Torillo, Bondoc stopped as the red car in front of us stopped. That was already around 9:30 p.m. When the car moved backwards, I jokingly told Joyce that the driver does not seem to know how to drive because he was moving backwards toward us. Seconds later, armed men came out of the car and swarmed Joyce’s car.

Blame it on my poor eyesight, my position on the seat beside the driver and the light coming from what I think must be an electric post, I could only see silhouettes of the armed men, one of whom was ordered me open the door say, “Libro, libro lang (books, only books),” which somehow assured me that they were just looking for something, probably drugs.

The same man pulled me out of Joyce’s car and dragged me to their car. What made me feel helpless was the fact that my eyeglasses misted as I left Joyce’s air-conditioned car. Running for safety would have been difficult for me because I couldn’t really see anything. Besides, I was cornered had no space to maneuver because of the wall on my side of the car.

The armed men apparently wanted to take Joyce and me to the waiting car. Joyce was able to run away after freeing himself from the grip of the man who held him. Ando, who was seated in the back behind me, was also able to run away. Only Falor was left inside Joyce’ car as two men boarded and commandeered the car.

As one of them pushed me to their car, I heard him say “Apat pala sila ( I didn’t know they were four).” In the car, the driver and another man, who held me down, forced me to duck, his hand over the left side of my face pinning my head onto his lap, my face virtually glued to the back of the front seat. I felt that we were on a circuitous route.

I saw familiar signs, especially the Great Eastern Hotel along Quezon Avenue when the car stopped for almost two to three minutes there, probably a red light. I thought of jumping out but I realized that even before I could get up and open the door, the man who was holding me could shoot me.

He removed my glasses and covered my face with jacket. As I saw buses, I knew we were on Edsa. Throughout the trip, I asked myself what I might have done for them to abduct me. Is this related to my work as a journalist? Did I write something that earned somebody’s ire? Is this the risk inherent in my profession?

But I realized that the abduction was not work-related when they started asking me questions like what is the name of my Chinese companion. I thought of Joyce. He is the only one among us who looked like a Chinese.

I told them that Joyce is not Chinese; he just looked like a Chinese. They described him as “isang Instik na may atraso sa amin (a Chinese who owes us).” They asked me where he lives and I told them I do not know.

They continued to bombard me with threats. “Huwag kang magulo kung ayaw mong I-salvage ka namin. Hindi ka namin gagalawin dahil di ikaw ang pakay namin. Pero baka gusto mong patayin ka na rin namin (Don’t fret if you don’t want us to kill you. We won’t hurt you because we are not really after you).”

I know that they were not joking. All throughout that trip, I felt some metal near my head, and I am sure that it was a gun. The man who was holding the gun to my head could shoot me right there and then.

I prayed hard. I prayed in the manner that I never prayed before, I lost count of how many Our Father and Hail Marys I prayed. The words even got mixed. I normally say these prayers before I go to sleep. I was also thinking about the things that I still wanted to achieve.

I even prayed harder when he tooked my wallet. What worried me was he might see my TODAY press card. I was sure he would shoot me if he had seen it. He complained that I do not have much cash in my wallet. I felt him take the money, place it inside his shirt pocket and throw the rest. Maybe my press card, too. He searched the pockets of my trousers and asked me what else I was carrying. I told him that I had candies in my pocket, which he took and ate.

The place we were travelling to was getting darker and I imagined that we were entering what could be a notoriously “salvage area”, And I prayed harder. Maybe God was listening because I heard the driver said, “Sige, ibaba na iyan (Go on, get down).” First words of relief. But the man holding me said not yet and that we must go further. Again, I got scared. What if they were just bluffing? What if they were just giving me false hope that I would be released alive but that they would kill me anyway? I tried to convince myself that the driver won’t change his mind.

Finally, the guy holding me said that we were already in the right place. When he ordered me to sit, I immediately sat. The driver said that my bag must be left behind. However, I asked that he give me back my eyeglasses. He gave it to me but he warned me not to wear it until I am out of the car.

Then the moment of freedom. “Baba ka at huwag kang lilingon.” I indeed jumped off but still anxious that it was still a bluff, that they would nevertheless shoot me. The area was a farmland with some factories, a place suitable for “salvaging.”

I ran for a few seconds before deciding to hide behind some trees, fearing that some of their companions were on my trail. When I saw nothing, I moved toward the area with many houses.

There, I learned that the place is indeed an area where dead bodies are dumped. In fact, a few days ago the body of an executive was found there.

The two guys were able to escape. The girl who was left in our car, Falor, was brought to a house in Taytay, Rizal and was detained inside a room and she was blindfolded all the while. The thought that she will be raped, of course, played in our mind and hers. But she said that the kidnappers gave her assurance that no harm shall be done unto her since they, too, have daughters. She heard cries of babies. She was released the following morning at around 3:00 am and was dropped of at Robinsons Galleria. I was only able to talk to her Monday, two days after the incident. 

My name, and that of my friends, landed in almost every newspapers, mentioned in TV and radio broadcasts for the next few days. I realized that being a subject of newsreports is different from being the one who is reporting. The beeps and calls that I had that day served as an assurance that I am still alive. 

There is the agony on worrying about the my safety and the safety of my family as well. So I decided to decline from surfacing to the media, although my close friends from the TV industry had been requesting me for an interview. It seemed that I myself became adrift from the world where I used to belong and work with for the past years.

The trauma that ensued for the following days kept me afloat on what happened to me. I can hear what people say but I cant understand them. I see figures and colors but it is as if I was not able to recognize them. My head felt too heavy that I had a hard time moving it. I just stayed in bed. I cant talk properly as if my voice was somewhere else. Call me praning but I had grounds to be so. There was a time when I answered the phone and no one talked, the sounds of tricycles from the phone caused me to panic since that seemed to be coming from just nearby. I ordered all our doors to be locked. And I even transferred to my cousins’ house for sometime just to assure me that no one will be able to follow me there.

A week passed and I went back to UP Law. I tried to think that everything will be normal. Falor was absent for more days than mine. She went to Baguio to rest. A few days later, another news broke out. It was about the same group that kidnapped us. One of our classmate and friend working in the military told me that my ATMs and calling cards were found inside a car that got involved in a chase with policemen that started in Greenhills and ended in JP Rizal in Makati. They were killed during a shoot out. Newspaper reports quoted statements from the persons who were killed heard by witnesses: “Huwag ninyo kaming paputukan dahil parepareho lang tayong pulis!” But they were killed nevertheless. The car was different from that of Joyce. But the plate number is that of Joyce’ car. So, that made us to conclude that these are the same people who abducted us. What enforced our conclusion was the pictures of the house or headquarters of those killed that was raided a day later since Falor recognized that that was the same house in Taytay where she was brought and detained that night. When checked as to the affiliation of these people, it was confirmed that they were indeed former cops or members of the military. Thus, that prompted me to keep my silence for fear that my safety and my family’s will be jeopardized.

At least still I am alive. And with my brains still intact. What made me afraid was the fact that for every batch in UP Law for the previous years, one student member of each batch died, almost all of them graduating that year. And I prayed that it was not me for our batch. It was like a curse of sort of, that one person will be a sacrificial lamb in exchange for the good performance of UP in the bar exams. I don’t know.. Siguro.

Nevertheless, that night will indeed go down in history as an experience that could have changed my perception in life, at the very least. My belief that an omnipotent being is always out there to guide you is indeed reinforced. I am not a very religious person, although I have two brothers who are into priesthood. But prayers do make miracles. Consider me pathetic, but I think the prayers that I said that night as the only reasons for my survival. If not for those prayers, maybe I am not alive now. Or maybe I can no longer join climbs in the mountains, drinking spree with friends, or I could not have passed the bar exams and became a lawyer, or just be a simple Dennis Gorecho, alive and well!!!!!!