Pepe Panglao, Writer, Hong Kong
When I was a little boy growing up in the Philippines I heard countless stories of mothers who lost their sons in senseless killings. There were stories of young men either stabbed or shot dead while walking home from work; for curiously looking at a person who disliked to be stared at, or walking a pretty girlfriend home before the envious eyes of other men. There was no rational motive or logical reason why they had to be killed, but they were. The killers never hesitated to kill. Neither did they fear arrest; they just killed the target of their frustration or anger. That is just the way that life went on in our village.
In some streets or communities in our area senseless murders by stabbing and shooting have been so common that names have been changed de facto to ¡¥Kanto Hagba¡¦ (a street corner where a person falls dead). One of these places was the corner of a street close to where we lived in my childhood days.
I must have been seven years old then. But regardless of age, I could not forget my mother¡¦s perpetual warning to me and to my two elder brothers to avoid passing through that street, especially during night time. When night fell, that street was virtually deserted. None of the villagers would dare rent or live in a house close to that street. Our mother¡¦s repeated warnings and the numerous deaths in that street left in us a deep-seated fear of the place and it took me many years to get over it.
There is no doubt in my mind that my mother did not intend to cause trauma or sow fear in us. Her warnings, by way of telling us which places we should avoid, were her way of protecting us, her sons, from harm. Like any mother it was her intention to keep us safe. I also had no doubt that my mother¡¦s warning to us to ¡§keep our mouths shut¡¨ when we witnessed a crime and that we ¡§should not testify or become a witness¡¨ were also intended to protect our family. But I did ask, what if the victim was my father, one of my brothers or relatives, would someone testify for us? I do not know.
When I was a little boy, I witnessed the stabbing death of a man in full view of the public. The story was one of the countless killings that I have either heard of or witnessed. I saw with my own eyes how the killer, who was carrying a kitchen knife, had chased after and repeatedly stabbed his victim while the people who had seen the incident yelled for help. I could not forget how the victim struggled to protect himself. He was holding a small wooden table that he placed between him and his attacker. I recognized both of them because they were locals in the area and I saw both of them during the stabbing incident.
When I told this to my mother, she told me, ¡§You did not see anything, if anyone asks, you tell them you know nothing.¡¨ When the police started investigating the incident, as was to be expected no one else was willing to testify either. None of the people in the crowd had seen anything. When no one testified, it was not because no one had seen the stabbing, but the people knew full well, including my mother, that testifying and standing as a witness in a criminal investigation would surely make one the next target. I am not sure what the result of the case was but I can presume that it was just another case involving a man dying in a senseless killing, and another killer who was willing to kill again.
This is how my siblings and I were brought up. However, I believe that our mother did not intend to prevent us from talking about what I had seen, but it is rather the lack of protection for people in the Philippines that convinced her that for me to stand as witness would not be safe. This is even though my mother was a public school teacher. I knew her as a kind person to others, a person who taught a wide variety of subjects, including good moral values: among them, the value of compassion and helping others.
This was one of the many instances in my life that made me ask many questions as to the contradictions and double standards my mother had in terms of helping others; however, it was only in my adult life that I began to understand. She had to make a choice. It was the choice between keeping us safe and her allowing me to testify at the expense of the safety and security of our family. For her it was not a simple matter of principle and helping others, but a question of survival in an insecure environment.
I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been for my mother to raise and protect three sons in this way. It is easy to pass judgment on people as to how they lack compassion and concern for others, but it is only when we try to understand the fundamental reasons as to why most people in our society prefer survival and self preservation that we get a sense of the realities of our society, and of the downright failure of our own government to ensure security and safety.
I owe my life to my mother, father and my siblings. However, to get over my traumatic experiences is something that I had to deal with myself. But while to some extent I have overcome this trauma, my mother and most of my family members, who continue to live in our hometown, have not. Even in my adult life my mother still tries to discourage me from complaining or speaking of the evils that I have seen in our society. My younger sister always describes me as a ¡¥troublesome¡¦ person for speaking my mind, but I always tell them: ¡§Don¡¦t worry, I¡¦m old enough to decide for myself; and I will take great caution.¡¨
I began to understand as an adult the insecurity and lack of protection that had prevented my mother, my siblings and many other Filipinos from testifying and trying to make their society safer for all. For them, even to think of becoming a witness to a crime is an act of suicide. This dominant mentality and attitude is what I continue to express with contempt in exposing the situation of our society. The value of life, due to one¡¦s self preservation and survival, has lost its meaning. The real sense of ¡§community¡¨ simply ceased to exist due to deep-seated fear and insecurity.
When I was a university student, on one occasion I came close to death after becoming a robbery victim myself. I was walking home from school through an alley when a young man pushed me to the wall. He was with another man who served as his lookout. Poor as I was, I was dressed in formal clothes as a requirement for our school production and this man demanded money from me. He began to thrust a pointed object at my chest which he claimed was a knife. He was serious in telling me that he would surely stab me once I moved or drew attention to what was happening. I could see many people passing by just over his back. I tried giving clues to the passersby that I was being robbed, but I think even if they knew they would not get into trouble. None of them came to my rescue. This was exactly what my mother had told me would happen.
I was lucky that the robbers finally gave up on me after they checked my penniless wallet. I had only a few pesos, just enough to pay for a jeepney (public utility vehicle) ride to collect the allowance that my mother had just sent for me. But before the robbers got rid of me, one of them hit my chest hard, leaving me gasping for air. A few days later, I heard a story about another graduating student from an expensive university close to mine who was stabbed to death when she refused to give up her expensive watch and jewellery to the robbers.
A Filipino looking at Hong Kong
I had these experiences with me as I settled down in Hong Kong and it took me some time to believe that what the Filipino people and I had thought would be next to impossible, is, in fact, possible here. The people in Hong Kong live a life exactly the opposite of the life I used to live: an environment of protection, security and safety.
It struck me very hard that I dreamt of a society in which a person could testify and file a complaint with the police or any government agency and enjoy the security provided by existing mechanisms. To report to the police on crimes, even on cases that are not life threatening, to file a complaint and to testify in criminal investigation to help solve crimes, is the way of life of the people in Hong Kong. Of course, as in any society not everyone is satisfied with the police; however, by and large the people have confidence in their police force. Yes there is street-level crime here, as there is in any territory, but the incidence of such crime is far less than most cities of the region.
In Hong Kong one need not wield political power, influence and have connections with those people in the government before filing a complaint and have it investigated or acted upon. One need not have a huge amount of money to spend in litigation before filing a complaint. There are legal aid services and it is easy to avail yourself of these services because they are widely publicized. There are instructions on how to process this type of request. And should your life be threatened as a result of your complaint, I am confident that there is an adequate protection mechanism available.
Like elsewhere, crimes are committed here in Hong Kong but the criminals do not always get away with them. They are prosecuted and held to account because the laws here are not put in place to protect the interests of the government and those in power. There are norms and standards that are applied in a real sense in Hong Kong. The government and its laws protect the lives and the interests of the people and the people have the confidence that this is the case. To seek redress and a remedy for a violation of one¡¦s rights is a battle not only by the victim, but of the community who, despite being largely apolitical, are compassionate to others.
The law is applied to all, not only a selected few. There are fewer crimes here not because the people are religious, but because they know full well that they could not get away with it without being punished. The offenders also know full well that should the victims and their witnesses file a complaint, the law would be there to protect them.
Unlike the lives that many Filipinos continue to live, the parents of children in Hong Kong need not to tell them that to stand as a witness is equal to becoming the target of a killing or an act of suicide; that they should choose whom they should speak to so as to protect themselves; or simply to prevent them from walking out at night time due to the risk. The people here need not be given assurance or be convinced that they are safe and secure.
I can still remember a few years ago when my wife called 999, the emergency police hotline, asking for assistance after our daughter had accidentally locked herself inside our bedroom. It only took five to ten minutes for the responding officers to come to our house, break open our bedroom and take our child to safety. They also offered to take our child to the hospital over concerns that she may have been traumatized by the incident. They had a standby ambulance and numerous rescue officers waiting outside. This could not have happened in my country.
Over 140,000 Filipino migrants in Hong Kong are living and working as domestic workers, professionals and residents. While most of them have lived most of their adult lives in the Philippines, some were born and grew up in Hong Kong and there is no doubt in my mind that they would share a deep appreciation to the government of Hong Kong who ensures our safety and protection.
Some Filipinos who have resolved to speak out against the ugly reality of their country find it too risky for them to remain there. Out of necessity they choose to leave their families and their homes to come to places like Hong Kong where they can campaign openly about the system and injustices in their country. Due to Hong Kong¡¦s close proximity to the Philippines before it became widely known as a destination for Filipino domestic workers it also used to be the haven of Filipino political dissenters, from the Spanish colonial period up to the martial law regime of the late President Ferdinand Marcos.
Hong Kong has shown to Filipino people, particularly those who want to speak against the defects of their own country, that it is possible to live and work in a secure and protected environment. The territory of Hong Kong and its people have been the benchmark of a rule-of-law society, a society which remains the dream of the Filipino people. Hong Kong today is an example for the Filipino people who work here in safety. This place has shown us the meaning that something is possible. It encourages us to work for our country and to hope that the day will come when we can return home and enjoy the same degree of safety.
A Filipino in Hong Kong looking at the Manila hostage incident
I can fully understand how the Hong Kong people reacted to the tragic end of the Manila hostage incident. They had every right to expect the same degree of response and professionalism towards the situation that they would have found here. Sadly the government of the Philippines failed in that respect.
The concerns of local Filipinos that anger and hatred could be vented towards them by people sympathetic to the families of the hostage victims are not imagined: this is happening. There have also been instances like this in the past, such as the discrimination and isolation of Filipinos following a local newspaper report that they were the carriers of a communicable disease. Following the hostage taking, some employers sacked their Filipino domestic workers; others have been verbally abused in the streets. A person known to me was told by her employer that if anyone asks what her nationality is, she was instructed, ¡§Tell them you¡¦re an Indonesian.¡¨ Some employers are restraining their workers from going out, supposedly for ¡¥precautionary reasons¡¦.
Some workers avoid discussing the hostage incident with their employers and believe that this is the safest way to get past it. They just hide in toilets or their own rooms to cry hard due to the humiliation they feel for this shameful incident, and to make sure they do not draw their employer¡¦s attention.
This is not to trivialize the feelings of the families of the hostage victims. I completely agree that that the victims¡¦ families and the people in Hong Kong have every right to express their anger and that my family and I owe our safety and protection in living here to the Hong Kong government. However, this feeling of safety is what enables me to speak out on behalf of those workers who are not at liberty to do so. To deny the already growing concern and the existing problem of the needless tension; and to calculate one¡¦s statement to avoid offending others does not help. It rather prevents the needed precautionary measures and could deprive the possibility of a dialogue.
When Filipinos fear to allow their children to go to the playground or send them to school it is not out of paranoia, it is rather their traumatic response due to the insecure life they used to experience and live with back home. It is not an overreaction for them to believe that the people of Hong Kong might resort to violence out of a misguided sense of revenge. It is simply the fact that this was the lifestyle they lived in the Philippines and they are all too familiar with the concept of bloody revenge.
The hostage incident has provided for the people of Hong Kong a glimpse of what Filipinos have to endure in their country daily, which is why so many people choose to work abroad, not only to earn a living but also to escape from their country. It would be unfortunate if some people in Hong Kong misunderstand this and take out their feelings about the incident on people who are already traumatized by the experience of growing up in a country which offers them no protection.
I express my deepest condolences to the families of the hostage victims. Like them, I have also lost many personal friends due to the insecurity of the Philippines¡Xmostly at the hands of the police, the military and the people who work for them. The latest case was the Maguindanao Massacre, where I lost personal friends and colleagues amongst the 57 who were murdered.
However, it is also my duty and obligation as a Filipino to speak against anything that could compromise the safety and security of fellow Filipinos in Hong Kong. Here I can say without fear and reservation that if I was attacked or persecuted for my views and opinions I am confident the law in Hong Kong is capable of protecting me. It is for this reason that I have deep respect for the Hong Kong people and government. The protection that Hong Kong provides its residents is what is lacking in my own country, and what we all long for.
