More Bargirls, Bini Boys & Blades

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Bargirls, Bini Boys & Blades

More

True Adventures in the Philippines

Perry Gamsby

More Bargils, Bini Boys & Blades

© P.Gamsby 2014

StreetWise Publications

22 Waikanda Cres, Whalan NSW 2770

Australia

Email: streetwise@gmail.com

Copyright Perry Gamsby 2014

All Rights Reserved

ISBN:

Smashwords Edition, License Statement

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Contents

Picked Pockets

Tooling Up!

Breakdown in Bandit Country

To Mindoro With A Pirate For A Captain

Expats or Exiles?

It’s Only Money!

Not Waving, Drowning!

Japanese Bomb Bursts

The Sea Shalt Not Have Me

About The Author

Picked Pockets

I have spent more than two decades and a half coming to this country, over four years actually living here. It is a fascinating place that I admit I have had an addiction to, even before I first set foot on Filipino soil. I can recall when I was eleven or twelve and we had a beautiful mestiza from the Philippine Tourism Board visit my school. She was there to tell us a little about her country and no doubt drum up some business.

Even before that, my father had told me stirring tales of battles with the Moro’s and the Huks. I actually made it to Manila before he did, but we both love the place. It wasn’t until I had been to the Philippines twice that I trained in the Filipino martial arts. Not that I hadn’t looked for a teacher, just that they can be hard to find. It is easier to learn Tae Kwon Do or Karate here than it is to sign up with an Arnis or Escrima instructor.

I have never denied that the big lure was not the martial arts or the culture and history that steeps the very streets you stumble along. Of course it is the women. To me, they are beautiful and exotic and so easy to bed. I’m not talking the professional companions, as they are sometimes termed. I gave up chasing them after my first trip. Unlike my countrywomen, Filipina’s in everyday life are very approachable and willing to meet foreigners. Even when you get older and larger and maybe less hairy, they still make it easier to meet and marry one than her western sisters do.

Everything, of course, comes at a price. The fee for fun in the Philippines can sometimes be quite high. I personally know men who have lost everything they ever owned or earned to a Filipina and others who would gladly have given it all just to stay alive. The Philippines is not a dangerous place in the way some are. Downtown Kabul or the suburbs of Freetown, Sierra Leone are far more lethal cities than vibrant Manila.

My adventures and incidents related in this book are the culmination of over twenty five years of involvement, yet none of them were fatal and few involved any loss or injury. I really believe you are far more likely to suffer a violent death on the roads back home than on the streets here in the PI. More likely though, is that you fall foul of the pickpockets and petty thieves that are rife in any third word country where the social welfare net simply does not exist. While many struggle to scratch a living from the barren land, others take the path of least resistance, and effort, and simply turn to crime. There are numerous tricks that are tied and tested ways of separating you from your money and valuables. Some of them seem corny to many of us, but they have been known to work on the unsuspecting, the stupid and the gullible. Others are slick and very professional.

I always walk facing the oncoming traffic, that way they can’t sneak up behind you so easily. One day I was walking down the main street of Olongapo when I was passed by a jeepney on the other side of the street, but heading in the same direction as I was. I took notice that the driver seemed to take more interest in me than most of his colleagues. A bit later I was walking back to my hotel, on the other side of the street when I saw him parked by the kerb.

One reason for walking facing the oncoming traffic is the basic traffic safety reason. The other, a little more sinister. When I was in Angeles for the first time, many years before, I had met a man in a bar who was white as a ghost and drinking a few straight shots to calm his nerves. He had just taken his mate to hospital suffering a traumatic amputation. They had been walking along Fields Ave when a motorcycle came up behind them. His mate had been wearing an expensive Rolex watch, a dumb thing to do, for sure. The passenger on the motorbike produced a machete and a bucket, and took the man’s arm off above the watch, catching the hand, and the watch, in the bucket. They then roared off leaving the man looking at his stump in shock! That sounds like a serious way of stealing a watch, but this guy swore it happened to his mate earlier that day and I have no reason not to believe him. I have heard similar tales from people who have been to wild parts of Africa and South America, perhaps it is true, perhaps it is an urban myth and the bloke was just stringing me along?

Meanwhile, back in Olongapo, as I walked past the jeepney, the driver called out to me; my friend! Oh, I was his friend! What a relief. I just smiled and kept on walking, the sidewalk was pretty wide and I was against the buildings while he was ten feet away at the kerb.

He called to me again and covered the ten feet in two or three quick steps. I did a quick check behind me to make sure I wasn’t getting penned in, then turned and smiled. He asked me where I was from and I told him Australia. He asked where I was staying and I told him with his wife while he was out driving his jeepney. He laughed at that.

He said he had a relative in Australia and this chap was going to send him a wallet as a present. How much were wallets in Australia? I replied they cost between ten and a hundred dollars, more for the ones with money in them. He laughed again and told me he had never seen an Australian wallet, could I show him mine so he could see what one looked like? Now it was my turn to laugh. I told him he would have to do better than that, that he needed to plan these things better and that his wallet scam was too obvious. I backed away as I kept chuckling. He saw the funny side of his inept attempt at finding where I kept my wallet and didn’t chase me.

In Ermita and Makati there have been a number of gangs operating over the years that prey on foreigners. One of them is called the ‘Ativan Gang’ after their preferred brand of doping drug, Ativan. They hit Filipino’s too, but prefer the cashed up foreigner. Their modus operandi, or MO, is to befriend a foreigner and slip him a Mickey Finn made from Ativan, hence their name. He wakes up without his wallet and watch and anything else of value. Sometimes they use females to lure the horny victim to his fate. He takes her back to his hotel room where she slips him the spiked drink. He’ll wake up a day later and they are long gone, along with everything he owns. A lot of Japanese and Korean businessmen fall for that one. If the man insists on going to a ‘Love Motel’, they still get him for his valuables and his clothes.

I know a very experienced traveller who was hit by such a gang in Makati two or three years ago. He withdrew money from an ATM and was immediately befriended by two Filipino men and a woman. He then got into a car with them and accepted an already open can of orange juice. He woke up hours later in a back alley, robbed of his wallet, watch and passport. Some decent passing Filipino’s took him in a taxi, at their own expense, to a hospital and also called the police.

Why did a very intelligent, well travelled man fall for such a well known scam? Firstly, as far as he was concerned the scam was not ‘well known’. Secondly, he was simply gullible. He has a very individual sense of humour and his intelligence is so great, common sense can’t often get a look in! He was lucky, many of the victims of the Ativan Gang don’t wake up. They are murdered. Even if the girl isn’t a card carrying member of this gang, she uses the same MO and the press will report it as yet another of the gang’s dastardly deeds.

Street crime is not violent all that often, contrary to popular belief. There are a lot of murders here, but these are usually alcohol related and involve Filipino’s settling old scores with each other. Sometimes foreigners may be targeted if they have a Filipino business partner who wants it all for him or herself.

Another danger comes from the new spouse, or her family. There are many cases of men being killed during ‘bungled’