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Monday, July 07, 2003
Editorial: Praning haven
At Calamba cemetery, the remains of the poor are placed in a common grave. Despite this earthly distinction, efforts are still taken to appease the dead with a huge cross ringed by an octagonal bier. On feast days and Mondays, the day of souls, this common grave has flowers and candles left by those wishing to honor their departed.
The living loitering in the Calamba cemetery are a little more difficult to please. Cemetery workers and visitors alike take pains not to stray to the secluded areas or to wander alone. The cemetery is notorious as the den and hunting grounds of drug addicts.
Last week, Joefel Manuela was laid to rest here.
Just 45 days old, Manuela was found floating last July 1 in the Guadalupe River, about eight meters from their riverside shanty. Although an autopsy established death by drowning, authorities are investigating the case, including the possible involvement of her mother.
Ofelia Manuela, unemployed, had admitted that she used drugs but stopped in 1999. She asserted that she did not harm her baby. Ofelia claimed that on the night of the accident, she had slept between Joefel and the dangerous open side of their shanty. Tottering on stilts, the tiny home has no walls, just recycled streamers that act as flimsy barriers to keep the family from falling into the river.
Joefel was the fourth child of Ofelia and Joel, a car wash boy. Their other children are aged six, five and two. How can a person in dire poverty still afford shabu?
Calamba Councilor Ninfa del Rosario said that Calamba’s community of drug pushers and users adopts a “Robin Hood” policy: be generous with your neighbors. In her 32 years of residence, del Rosario has seen shabu catch on like wildfire among depressed families who have no regular sources of income. Street traders can earn P20 for every P100 packet of shabu.
This underground economy is spread over an area known among the locals as a Bermuda Triangle, bounded by sitios Mahayahay, San Antonio and Paglaum. Notorious night markets are the Calamba cemetery, a place named Sambagan for its many tamarind trees, and the “no man’s land” bordering Labangon and Calamba.
Yet, for all its reputation as a haven for pranings (addicts), Calamba has an unimpressive tale of the tape. According to San Nicolas Police Station data collated by SPO2 Bartolome Macachor, there were 47 drug-related operations conducted from January to June this year. For the same period in 2002, there were 52.
Fewer persons (only 56) were arrested during the first semester of 2003, compared to the 68 apprehended in 2002. As of last May 31, the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) filed 11 cases in court, charging 17 suspects.
San Nicolas police seized 0.76 grams of shabu, 37 shabu packets of undetermined weight, 0.76 grams of marijuana, rugby and shabu paraphernalia from January to June 2003. The haul is a little more than 2002’s: 3.07 grams of shabu, one packet of unknown weight, rugby and shabu paraphernalia.
Del Rosario said that neighborly generosity within the drug enclaves of Calamba means keeping secrets and looking out for the others. Over the years, buy-bust operatives have been hit by stones hurled by relatives and neighbors blocking them from arresting suspected drug pushers residing in Calamba.
Professor Raymund Fernandez, a long-time resident, said his boyhood friends, who are now sigas and istambays (neighborhood toughies), attest that no one in the shadow community of Calamba lacks for food, quick cash or free drugs. He remembered his friends as saying they used shabu to dull, not just hunger pains, but the abrasions of living.
Perhaps it was this chemical-induced dream that was the last thing in 13-year-old Maricar Ancajas’ mind before she drowned in the same river and in the same month as Joefel, two years ago. Ancajas herself had bought from a sari-sari store P15 worth of rugby. She shared this with two girl friends before they went swimming in the river.
Experts say that, to take drugs out of a person’s system, the user has to be physically removed from the origin of addiction. But, even in death, Joefel and Maricar are still in Calamba, buried not far from the shadows prowling the old cemetery. |
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