I am Rian, simple young man and not a member of the civil society of the Philippines. And so is kuya Ernest. Yet, something happened that's maybe worth sharing here in this blog. We're not so sure about this. You can't easily validate something that did not happen...
We were on a big boat with its roof deck accessible to the riding passengers & all. (We can't disclose exact details here for our security reasons.) Kuya, just like me, can't help it: He'd certainly go up there to that deck. He did. What did he see? In the rows of seats, a handful of young (20s to 30s) to mid-age men with the kinds of gestures, position and looks that made him uneasy, very uneasy.
Organized criminals who likely plotted to victimize a group of young stage performers from an elite institution in Metro Manila (we can't say details here or good descriptions). They had guardians, maybe guards too & others with them, some were their guides or so.
Our presence, kuya's greetings to some in the group & his remarks might have help disrupt their plans. We were to take another public transpo vehicle to what they didn't know our common destination city.
Kuya Ernest realized that earlier than that in another public transpo terminal, where passengers would alight from another mode of transportation, a guy, tall, well-built, bald & dominating in his conversations with strangers (where he made it sound & appear he was too), were nudging us either to reveal where we were going & perhaps also to instead take another circuitous route but would have saved us some time if we were (in his curiosity) going to a very far away city. It was totally unnatural for him all of his acts & words. & Kuya detected later that he used choice words to make us trust him.
But we're not ordinary travelers. We know real & impending threats of different levels (to our properties or persons). We knew a goon-type man that to others looked threatening & fearsome but to us would look like our new stranger-friend who mean no harm to us even as we encounter him in a dark & isolated area of a dangerous place VS what should look like you next-door neighbor brother, lanky, without strong body (or muscles) or so but we know that even in a place that rather seem safe & who we encountered during safe daytime hours, in fact is plotting to have us abducted or robbed or so. We know how to tell, almost all of the time.
We helped disrupt the plans of some organized criminals to victimize elite young men from Metro Manila in a place they didn't know very well they could be in greater dangers than they thought maybe (they looked like they knew it was not safe there & they had precautions but underestimated the threats).
We by accident helped secure lives with our humble means when at that time we were in some not-so-good situation too & friends ignored our calls for some simple assistance.
We aim to help save at least 99 lives a year in the next ten years. How? By a number of creative & innovative, but simple & doable means we have thought of and will try to use to achieve phenomenal success - 'phenomenal' here means helping save at least 99 lives over ten years. As Rian Igos & I, Ernest Barraquias Jr shouts: "We can if we care to act"
