Boy in trouble

THE birth certificate an elder sister brought to my house the other day revealed that he was only 15 years old last Feb. 26, and baptized the following May 18th as Wilson Goc-ong Jr. But that is really not important at the moment to his elder sister who had played guardian to him and an elder brother. Wilson was caught a few days earlier with a tally sheet and some cash while on his way to deliver the cash to a so-called “masiao” coordinator for P50 a night of delivery work. He was, he said, merely an errand boy.

Actually, the family background of Wilson is quite a long and complicated one to follow quite fully. To do so would mean digressing from the main trail of this tale.

To begin again, Wilson had later taken the family name of his mother, Dionesia Gallo.

Why he did it is not quite clear to me. But so did his elder sister, Jenny. When they were very young, their mother left them suddenly because their father, Leonardo, refused to allow Dionesia to work in Manila and help the family earn a living. 

That was the last time they saw their mother. When their father learned that her mother was living with another man, he also decided to take another woman. It was probably at about this time that Jenny and her two younger siblings decided to take the family name Gallo. Jenny’s father and mother were legally married, but he did not wed Mercy as his second wife since Mercy was a widow with four other children. Mercy took to doing our laundry once a week, and Jenny used to accompany her stepmother to our house when she was just 11.  

And now, at 20 she has two children herself--sons two and three years old. When she showed up at our house and said she used to come with her stepmother, I suddenly recalled that I had her stay in our house in Balamban with two other elder companions for a few months. 

Now, she was telling me that Wilson was arrested a few days earlier by the police for being a “masiao” runner or delivery boy. I told her to give me a copy of the papers that she said she had obtained from the people in a frantic effort to have her brother released from prison.

When I read the copy, I remarked that Wilson was dragged to jail as a minor offender for a measly P173. Jenny told me police got P1,773 from her brother, she said. That decidedly puzzled me. Last Wednesday, when I went to the police office to talk to chief of police Anthony Telin Bagarinao, he was out visiting other police stations.

But I met Wilson, since he was allowed to stay out of jail, but made to stay outside. His bail was set at P10,000. 

Then I asked him how much money the two arresting officers got from him. He told me in front of the police officer on duty that the amount was P1,773. I told the police on duty about the amount in the Information. Later, I got a copy from Jenny of the certification from Chief Bagarinao that acknowledge that Wilson Goc-ong Gallo charged in “Violation of RA 9287 (Sec. 3, Par. C) which is docketed under Crim. Case TCS-8096” was filed at the RTC branch in Toledo City. 

The Balamban police chief certified that “Said person is detained at Balamban Municipal Jail.” (To be continued)