October 23, 2001 (Part II)

What do I make of all these? How has this event changed my life? Do I still harbor residual resentment towards certain people and situations?

Why post this at all?

Now, what happened after and how people reacted.

*******

This was worse than the time somebody stole my bag in our school's adoration chapel when I was in fifth grade. I didn't get back the wallet I had inside. It was a Purefoods wallet, the one they used to sell with Alvin Patrimonio's picture on it, hahaha. At least I got my books and notebooks back.

So this time, I wasn't just about ready to give up without a fight. A lot of good things have happened in my life in the past. Good family, school distinctions, international competitions - I was blessed! I didn't really have any idea who I was up against that time, but at least I could continue hoping for the best. Good things have happened before in my life, and I was willing to have another good thing happen to me. I was hoping the money would come back.

A co-teacher suggested I do a novena to St. Anthony of Padua (incidentally, my section in first year High School), patron saint of lost things and missing persons. Yes, I did it. And that's been the only time I've done a novena in my life.

Another co-teacher suggested we consult with a fortune teller who was their neighbor in Banawe. The fortune-teller said the thief was somebody I knew. She (the thief) and her accomplice in fact were already agonizing about what they've done, and that they're feeling very much the guilt imposed on them by the theft. The fortune teller also offered to peek into my future, but I declined since while I believed in each person's intrinsic freedom to chart his own path, I was very vulnerable during those times. I and my other friends who went with me to the fortune teller were persons of science, and we knew that consulting a soothsayer goes against the natural parameters of logic and reason, but we were desperate for leads.

What the fortune teller told me reinforced what I've already realized up that point. The thief knew who I was, and I knew who he/she was. (For ease of writing, I will refer to the thief in the masculine, despite the fortune teller's pronouncement that the main thief was a female.) He knew exactly where the money was. My table had two drawers. Only the lock for the drawer with the money was broken. There were other valuables in that big faculty room. Nothing else was stolen. Everything was done deliberately. The only goal was to get that big amount in my drawer.

The dirty bastard was somebody who worked in that University (probably in the same department, or in the same college), and he stole money that wasn't even mine.

*******

Let me whine first. After all, this is my blog.

I feel uncomfortable with asking permission to whine. Can't I just whine subtly, and not have to declare it to the whole world? Well, I think I need to put things in context, and back then, in the middle of all this, I felt so cheated. I thus need to say why I felt so cheated. Of course, the theft itself was already unfair on its own. Whether my sentiments are justified or not, the fact remains that they were my sentiments, and it is my story I'm telling here.

I truly believe I was one of the department's workhorses during that time. I'd have to wake up early enough for a 7:30 am class, and it didn't help that commuting to my university was so difficult. I was always late. And that reflected in the evaluations my students made.

And it's not as if I could go home early so I could sleep early, and wake up early enough for my early morning class. I'd usually have to stay late and lock the faculty room myself. There were the usual courses I was taking as a masteral student. And when students come in to consult and ask about problems, I never send them away, even if it means answering their questions until 9 pm.

And that July of 2001, I was doing pretty much all of the dirty work for this activity I won't discuss in detail here, to protect not only my but other people's anonymity. Preparing for this activity (okay, it's some international competition, and I was like the assistant coach) involved me traveling from Quezon City to Bicutan at 8pm to get letters of recommendation from the DOST Secretary for the said activity, before going back home to Pasig. It is not easy to ask for and do a follow-up on their goddamn signatures! Red tape of what? It's the same friggin' letters they do every year. And why can't they just get the spelling right for the typewritten names I sent, so I don't have to go back to Bicutan again and wait for another set of days before the letters are signed again?

The said activity also involved making visa interview appointments with the US Embassy for 8 people, making sure everybody involved has all the required documents (DSWD certificates), talking with travel agents looking for the cheapest available airfare to the US for 10 people, coordinating with the other people involved on how I could collect their airfare, then forwarding this to the travel agent.

Oh yes, there's also begging for corporate funding for our trip. Drafting letters, making up a list of companies we were going to send these to, making a paper on what we were doing to sort of explain to these companies our situation, then going to some office in Makati, Manila, Quezon City to get their check donations.

There were times I wasn't able to meet up with my students because of things I needed to take care of related to this activity. Finding a substitute teacher was equally difficult. Like, c'mon, I wasn't just going elsewhere for a one-hour personal vacation! I had to go out brave the heat or rain for something related to work! It was easy to request some teachers to take over my classes for that day, but they also sometimes have their own classes, and so then I'd have to deal with the others.

Somebody had to do it, and I was thinking, it was for the student contestants. Because I've been in their shoes twice, and I knew the excitement they felt representing their country. I was doing all these out of a sense of duty. For free. Well, I guess technically it's not free since I didn't have to pay anymore for my airfare to Washington DC. But the thing is, in the past, when this activity still warranted full government support, the team leaders only had to take care of training the student contestants. Why did I always have to be assigned to those competitions which involved getting a US Visa (I did pretty much the same thing in 2005, when we had to go to Mexico)? Some of the contestant's parents were asking me if we were going to have any review at all for the contest. I said having a review is ideal, but unfortunately, looking for funding, making sure all of us had US visas, and getting the cheapest airfare would have to take top priority.

Unfortunately, I only had one body. And everything that had to be done prior to the actual trip was practically a one-man show: my show. I was in school 7 days of the week. It was during this time that my brothers got used to me talking and shouting in my sleep. It was during this time they stopped feeling guilty whacking me with a pillow just to shut me up so they can continue sleeping. It was during this time tears would just start to well in my eyes out of frustration when I couldn't find a particular document I needed among my pile of papers. It was during this time I got into the habit of banging all the pots and pans in the kitchen in the middle of the night just so I could keep awake, and I didn't care anymore if I woke everybody else (at least they have the luxury of going back to sleep). I was even thankful for the threats from my brothers to punch me in the face, because the fear I felt kept me awake.

The competition was in July. I've been out of the Philippines before, but I've never been really homesick until then. I was tired. But we pulled it through. I made it happen by doing all the dirty work. And I never got any credit, or if I did, I had to share it unfairly.

The Superman complex is my kryptonite. I was drafted afterwards for another task. Our department had to sponsor an international conference that same semester. Fortunately, I was this time just one among many workhorses. I still had to do a lot of things, the details I won't include anymore. They're less strenuous than the ones I had to do before, but you know what they say about straw - while each one carries little weight, in aggregate they can break a camel's back.

And again, I had to do all these on top of my teaching duties and responsibilities as a student. None of the things I did above would be considered significant factors for a salary increase. Which makes me think sometimes why we can't make the more senior faculty do more work, since they're getting paid more anyway. Yarrggghh, but that's why they're senior.

And then we jump to that part of the letter I posted previously. That part where after a much needed university sponsored faculty outing in Baguio, I had to go straight to my office to do something related to my students' grades, even though on that Sunday my relatives were waiting for me at home since my birthday celebration was scheduled that day. Of course, when I got home, they weren't there anymore.

*******

Not the exact words. And they did not happen in this sequence. This is a compilation of the initial questions and answers. Naturally, at the earlier stages, everything was so fragmented. I am not entertaining any fantasy that this is not a biased reconstruction. How could it be perfectly unbiased - we didn't exactly tape record our conversations. I'm at this point just relying on the general atmosphere of disbelief and questioning I remember from that time.

Others (O): Why did you (me) not deposit the money in the bank?
ME: I was busy. I didn't have time.
O: That's not an excuse.
ME: Believe it or not, it takes more than an hour of lining up at each cashier, not to count travel time to the bank. By the time I was done with my classes, the bank is already closed.
O: Why didn't you ask somebody to deposit the money for you?
ME: They said they're busy.
O: Why didn't you ask somebody to substitute for you so you could go to the bank?
ME: They said they're busy.
O: I can't believe this.
ME: Yes, it's frustrating.
O: You always have excuses.
ME: I'm sorry.
O: I can't believe you were not able to find time to go to the bank to deposit the money.
ME: The money was in the drawer. Only faculty members and staff have keys to this office. I was preoccupied with a million other things. I'm sorry I let my defenses down. I didn't think somebody would do this to me.
O: What bothers me is that you don't seem to be repentant at all.
ME: This is my defense mechanism. Somebody I know betrayed my trust. I am not just about to roll down on the floor and bawl. I will do so in my own time (jump to 2007, almost 6 years after, I still haven't let it all out).
O: You don't know all the trouble I had to go through explaining this to university officials.
ME: Nobody knows all the hardships I had to go through the past few months. And now, somebody backstabbed me. Somebody deliberately did this. My very integrity as a person is being questioned.
O: You're always complaining that you have so many things to do. There are other people here who are doing more work than you.
ME: How could I even begin to answer that?

And then the blaming. Why didn't I do this, why didn't I do that. One lesson I've picked up from this experience is that, when somebody is down (in this case, me), stating the obvious repeatedly doesn't accomplish anything productive. What it does however is rub salt on the wound. I never absolved myself of any error in judgment (I was naive, I was 21 for crying out loud). But at times I just wanted to blurt out, "For Pete's sake, I got your point already! Now could you please just shut up!" They'd say they were only concerned, but really, they were just trying to deal with the issue themselves.

*******

And then the criminal investigation. This was the most painful. The University security office hired an investigator. I think he was some NBI guy. I forgot his name. I think I could still remember his face though. His bearded face.

Every freakin' day he interrogated me, he'd ask me where I stashed the money. This while the actual thief is already somewhere else with the money.

He questioned my capabilities. He questioned my integrity. Every opportunity he got.

Him: Why didn't you do an accurate accounting of the finances. Aren't you supposed to be good in math? Are you that dumb not to be able to do this?
Me: (I can't say anything. He drained my life force out of me each time.)
Him: Your gig's up. Just tell me where you took the money. I don't believe what you're saying. It would be so much easier if you just told me the truth.

Perhaps he was considering also the possibility that the thief actually wasn't me. Maybe in his own way he was also following up his own leads to the actual thief. But if that was the case, I never got to know. Every day we talked, he would always try to persuade me to admit to the theft.

He drained the color out of me each time he interrogated me.
But I never cried. Never in front of him.

I was always asked if I had a suspect in mind. I had none. This did not help my case. I ended up being the main suspect. His recommendation was to file criminal charges against me. The actual thief is still out there.

*******

I was 21. I never broke the law. I had always been a good son, a good student. I always did more than what was expected of me.

Yes, I was also naive. I didn't even know that when a check is not deposited after 6 months, it becomes stale. I only took over the system (of managing the training program where we collected the registration fees) from somebody else. I didn't see the need to introduce anything yet to make the system more efficient (efficiency is a luxury in the face of the million other urgent tasks). I implemented the system then (of collecting registration fees, filing student records) as best as I could.

The three people (co-teachers) who I would have wanted so much to be there with me to comfort me, were in a sad twist of fate, in the US, Singapore, and France respectively. Other than my family, my staunchest allies at work were nowhere near. There wasn't anybody capable of defending me, at my side.

Ian (yes, his real name; names of people who do good to you should not be hidden) of course when he came back defended me in front of all the other senior faculty who were deciding my fate. Oh, how he told everyone that they're only involving themselves now because there was money involved. But during the past few months, I was alone with only very little help. However, he was only able to return to the Philippines when the worst was over, when the criminal investigation was over.

To their credit, the collective decision of the senior faculty was not to file criminal charges against me. I wonder if some of them actually wanted to. I wonder if some of them actually believed I stole the money.

However, by command responsibility, I had to pay for it. They did not make me pay the whole amount that was lost (around P150,000). They made me pay P15,000, which is more than my monthly salary. They gave me from November until March to pay the whole amount. They did this in consideration of all the hard work I've done for the department.

I appreciate that.

*******

The next day, I paid the P15,000. I also told them I was resigning.

This amount is not a ridiculously big amount. It was within my means. But I didn't steal the money, so why should I be paying? The full amount or not, this was now a matter of principle.

Being a teacher doesn't pay much. I knew that. I am not complaining about that. Nobody forced me to teach. It was something I wanted to do.

Doing more than what is expected of me, to the point where it hurts, is something I've done before and will continue doing. That is how people around me know me. I will never be less the person I am and can be.

However, to actually end up giving more than the measly salary I was already getting, in light of all the time and effort I had to give in to do not just my work (the one where I get paid) but also other volunteer stuff (where I don't get paid), was bordering on the ridiculous.

Q: Do I accept command responsibility?
A: Yes.
Q: Do I acknowledge that there has been negligence on my part?
A: Yes.
Q: Is the reduction in the amount I have to pay, and the 5 months given me to pay this amount, not considerate?
A: I so appreciate this scheme. There was simply no way for me to pay the P150000 on my own unless I sell one of my kidneys.

What do I make out of this then?
Sometimes your mind, reason, logic... they tell you something. The resolution seemed reasonable enough. But your heart, what you feel, they say something else. At this stage, I may not yet have attained the requisite level of articulateness required to pinpoint what it is I feel that tells me this is all bullshit.

Q: So why would you still want to resign? We don't want you to resign. You've done so much.
A: I don't know.

This is then when I learned that your mind and heart at times are two totally independent aspects of a person. Your reason tells you something, but you have to realize that the way you think is just an aspect of a limited and imperfect being - the self. That is why we at times find our comprehension in conflict with our other inner self, our emotions.

Q: Will you be able to able to resolve this inner conflict?
A: I'd like that. However, maybe I won't be able to.
Q: So why would you still choose to make a decision then?
A: Because I cannot be paralyzed by indecision. There are two choices here - to stay or to go. I could roll a dice for all I care, but I have to make that decision.

And this is when I learned that yes, a choice is the death of all other possibilities. We'll never know for sure what would have happened if we went through that other fork in the road. We may actually be choosing the wrong path in the long run. Even though we come to this conclusion in the future, as long as we know we considered all the information we knew at that time, we really can't blame ourselves. What's important is you made the decision considering all that you knew at that point. That is better than being paralyzed by indecision, by staying forever at that fork in the road.

This is the story of how I found myself working in June 2002 in the Ortigas area. Outside my comfort zone

*******

Some people would say that this is the best possible universe. I tend to agree with that. Despite everything that's happened, I am who I am for all the good and the bad things. For a while, my parents thought I would commit suicide. They never said it directly, but I knew that was where they were about to say before they stopped themselves. They said they knew I was too smart to even consider this as an option.

But at the end of the day, this was all just about money. No one was injured. No one died as a result. My parents would tell me that other people have bigger problems. This did give me some comfort, although it was never a habit of mine to alleviate my suffering by comparing it to how much more other people are suffering (because I tend to see this as putting myself in a superior position, and I think that is not healthy).

Sure, my integrity was questioned, those bastards are still out there. I wonder what they did with the money. How I've often fantasized of what I would do if they were found out, or if they eventually admit to their crime. I could hurt them with all the force my puny hands could give out. I could also hug them, after all the bitter words have been said, since I'd like to believe they also suffered through the guilt.

I am capable of forgiving. But I don't know who to forgive.

Oh, and fyi, yes, there is a Part III.