By
Rolo B. Cena
Hushed
Poppies
Dumaguete
Star Informer
14
October 2012
Cebu City,
Philippines
– Recently, a 52-year old Filipina was sentenced to a 21-year imprisonment for bringing
a sealed package containing one kilo-heroin to Hong Kong. Lately, another Filipino businessman who came
from Saudi Arabia was sentenced for life imprisonment for carrying cocaine to China
en route from another major Asian City.
Circumstances
vary: The Filipina alleged that he met a
man in a convenience store in Kuala Lumpur who gave her a luggage for her to
use as a shopping bag. It contained a
sealed compartment with the contra-band.
On the other hand, the Filipino businessman alleged that he met a friend
in Vietnam who requested him to bring the luggage to a friend in China. The former traveled with his son and wife to
China. Both the Filipinos declared that
they neither know their accomplices nor verifiable identities nor contact
details of them
What
a mess! Is this sheer naiveté or a scripted
text only literature masters can profess in their espionage novels? Not even Grisham can convince me if he would
put this chapter in his latest take!
Travelling
on a business-class seat from Riyadh to Manila via Hong Kong in August 26, 2011,
I met a middle-aged Filipino couple in the airport of the former British Colony
who approached and requested if I can bring their extra suitcase to Manila for
the reason that they already exceeded the limit. Without any doubt or hesitation, I declined.
In
one of my trips from London to Manila, a friend asked me to carry his two
suitcases and laptop bag all the way to Manila as he was dropping by Hong Kong
to meet a friend. When I reached our
Customs arrival counters, I had a hard time explaining what were the
circumstances kept inside those extra suitcases as it did not proportionately reflect
the rationale of my trip vis-à-vis quantity.
I had to name-drop a friend’s who was then a custom officer that time.
In
life, I only have two reasons for not accepting or giving in: One, I don’t know the person; two, I don’t
know the object. And in this life, there
can only be two players: One, the
predator who hunts people and haunts circumstance; and two, the prey who may be
naïve or absurd.
When
you completely don’t know the person and the object and never allow yourself to
fall into prey, then no predator could ever ruin your integrity and your
life. But when you don’t know these
circumstances yet allow yourself to be a prey, then that’s more than just
naiveté. Such was the case of these two Filipinos,
assuming that they truly don’t know the circumstances behind those suitcases.
Flipping
the other side of the coin, their knowledge of the circumstances behind those
suitcases vis-à-vis the personalities involved and their hushed statements on
their identities inside foreign courts of law is their own and singular choice
that unfortunately brought them to conviction.
Common
sense will tell, no one in his sound mind will boldly dare not to inquire about
the content of the suitcase or intelligently question the details of the
personalities involved, assuming the alleged “predator and the prey” know each
other. More than this, an intelligent
decision would always be: “I don’t know
you, why would I?”
I
may have my own biases but their allegations declared under oath sounded too
lame as a defense or too horrible as a plea.
Definitely, I will not allow incidents like this to happen, not in my
conscious state.
Not
even Robert Ludlum would include this scenario or chapter in his masterpiece
assuming he still could write one!
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