CAREFUL AT TERRACES
POSTED AT 09:33 PM
or wherever, since it could happen anywhere.
After grocery
shopping, mom and I decided to go to Gelatisimo for ice cream. We were
sitting outside and we were the only ones there until this kid sits one
table away from us. I made a comment about how he looked too yagit to be sitting there.
Then
this man walks up to us holding a book that looked like a Bible. He was
right next to our table and I thought he was gonna solicit or whatever,
I was about to tell him off when he dropped the book and bended to pick
it up, then walked away. My mom and I were like "what was that
about?!". When we turned, my mom's bag (Coach which my brother brought
as pasalubong from the US) was gone.
My mom was getting frantic.
Our first impulse was to run after the man, but he wasn't holding
anything, so it couldn't have been him. My mom started going "KAKITA MO
UG NI AGI DIRI? KAKITA MO SA AKONG BAG"... No one saw anything. Then
this guy in plain clothes comes running out of Ayala's entrance. My mom
was still getting frantic when this guard and another guy in civilian
clothes approach us holding a kid with a backpack. My mom goes on about
her bag and all. The guy in civilian clothes told us to follow him to
the security office.
My mom's bag was in the kid's backpack.
The kid said he was 16 years old.
The kid had nothing on him, not even an ID or money or whatever.
The
guards told us they caught him only seconds after he got the bag.
According to him there were 7 of them, but they ran after the one with
the backpack. He said he noticed them come in and was automatically
suspicious since there have been several incidents of theft in the
Terraces area.
Apparently, putting up a distraction is part of
their "system". This time it was a book. Other times, the old man
dropped a bunch of coins, etc.
We brought the kid to Mabolo
Police Station and filed a case against him. But if he really IS 16
years old then he's a minor, and since the crime was minor too, he'd be
out in a couple of weeks. Apparently that's really how they work --
they get minors to be the last to hold the stuff they steal since
minors can't go to jail.
So yun, that's how they work. Careful, people!
Buti
na lang the guards at Ayala were more attentive this time. But this kid
was just one of them. One of their pawns. Who knows exactly how many
there are.
