Chapter 6: Yago's burden

Father Revo asked Monsignor Ubanon in private if the Rector thought it was odd for Sir Dikomo to take Franco away before he could announce to the press that the kidnapping victim had been found. They agreed in the observation that the media had to some extent turned the Quiapo kidnapping into a high-profile case, therefore it would have been a tremendous image-booster for Sir Dikomo to once more edify yet another sterling accomplishment of his in a press conference.

Monsignor Ubanon agreed with Father Revo that it might have been better to talk Sir Dikomo out of his plan to take the child away without first informing the press. However, he decided against Father Revo’s suggestion that the child be brought to the Hospisyo instead of the Social Welfare Office, until his parents were identified so they could reclaim him.

“I miss Father Andoy,” Monsignor Ubanon told Father Revo. Like priests who had been open target for tabloid items, Father Andoy was shipped to another diocese where he was deemed less known by parishioners. He could return to Quiapo after five years, however. Or he could have been sent to Rome for advanced studies in Theology, but his academic profile hardly endorsed him for such an opportunity.

Very likely Monsignor Ubanon was referring to what happened in an all-star baptism of an abandoned infant about five years ago.

“Yes,” Father Revo chimed in. “He had a way of putting himself in the middle of anything that others would shy away from.” And they both chuckled.

THE OXD TRIO TOLD General Makatigbas that they needed to be reimbursed when the latter directed them to drop the operation involving Vida’s child. They asked for half a million pesos for a month-long surveillance and for the Lancer which they deemed condemned. The general commented that the person to talk to on OXD matters was Dikomo. When they replied that Dikomo might have lost trust in them and were therefore asking the former boss to relay their sentiment to Dikomo, Makatigbas assured them of his help. But he also explained that the more immediate concern was to establish the parentage of the child, and to re-unite him with Judge De Gracia if indeed he was her surrogate child.

The trio adopted two contingency plans. One was to remain with OXD provided they got compensated within the next twenty-four hours. The longer it took for them to get paid, the higher the odds that they would never be paid at all. The other required a tougher decision-making process. They assumed that, given General Reg’s telling them that the child was assumed to belong to Judge De Gracia, it had become too risky to reclaim the child due to her connections within the law enforcement agencies. But in the event they would indeed find a way to reclaim the child—against all odds, that is—they could demand no less than a 3-million-peso ransom, given Judge De Gracia’s rumored wealth.

At five thirty p.m., 14 April 1990, Punzi received a call from El Odon. On the night of the previous day, she closely studied the mien of both El Odon and Boynas Diaz. She thought El Odon was easier to negotiate with. She discreetly approached him and showed him her duplicate badge. She offered him two thousand pesos in exchange for information on the whereabouts of the child. Another five thousand pesos would be given to him if any information he gave to her was deemed helpful for her work.

On the phone, El Odon told her that he heard the police would transfer the boy from the rectory to Sir Dikomo’s office across Lanciano Boulevard.

“A press… press conference had been… been set… set at eight p.m. eight p.m. in his office… office,” El Odon reported.

The distance between the rectory and Sir Dikomo’s office was less than three hundred meters and, in the trio’s assumption, Franco’s security would probably use the Aguinaldo Underpass to cross Lanciano Boulevard.

Benjo and Ivanho moved quickly. Benjo had earlier talked to the Warden of Manila City Jail, who was a friend from a long time ago when Benjo was still in the police force. They started as acquaintances when Benjo was attending court hearings. Benjo offered the warden five thousand pesos for the services of three prisoners, preferably petty criminals from the Quiapo area, and another one thousand pesos for honorarium of the guards who would be assigned to secure the detainees. The task was for the prisoners to clean the streets from Sunday’s litter around Quiapo in the evening, escorted by prison guards who however did not know what was going to happen except to prevent any escape. Three prisoners would normally require three guards, but in this instance, only two guards had reported for duty.

The prisoners tripped each other for the opportunity of being sent out on errands like this. They knew that a number of hours of community service would be deducted from the full length of their jailtime. There had been other assignments aside from the so-called Good Conduct Time Allowance incentives, such as those that entailed payment of “professional fees.” They mostly referred to renting prisoners as hired assassins, whose cells functioned like safehouses.

At about seven thirty p.m., Benjo, who had disguised himself as an itinerant vendor, stayed close to the entrance of the Aguinaldo Underpass at the Plaza Roma side. He was assuming that Sir Dikomo and his men would take this route to transfer Franco from the convent to his office across Lanciano Boulevard.

Punzi and Ivanho were at the Lanciano Boulevard side of the Underpass, just across from where Benjo was. The trio planned a scenario where a commotion, to be triggered in large part by Quiapo’s habitués—so that Sir Dikomo would not suspect somebody was on the loose trying to snatch Franco—could create enough distraction for the toddler’s security.

Unknown to them, Sir Dikomo had his own counter-security steps all planned out and set for execution, in the event something untoward happened. Plan A was to bring Franco in on board a secure car, from the convent then south toward Mediatrix Street and back to the other side of Lanciano Boulevard. Plan B—in the event there was heavy traffic at Mediatrix—was for the fetching unit to cross Lanciano Boulevard on foot via Legnica Overpass. The Aguinaldo Underpass route was the last and the least likely option.

Sir Dikomo had the foresight not to inform Vida about Franco before the press conference, because that, to him, was a sure way to invite unknown forces at the behest of General Uy. In the eyes of the venerable Judge Vida, and most especially before the press, he did not wish to share the limelight with any law enforcer to whom one way or the other she could be indebted for the rescue of Franco.

Benjo could be seen next as if he was in an earnest conversation with a bystander. The latter would move toward another huddle, this time involving what appeared to be two loose groups—a game of dama (a local derivative for chess) was in progress in one of them while a card game was about to begin in the other. These diversions often morphed into drinking sprees as evening progressed deeper into the night. At least two, one after the other, followed the bystander’s prompting; they got up to have a better look at a street sweeper some sixty meters away.

“You looking for Bodabil?” one of the card wagers asked the bystander.

“No, he was asking if anyone remembers Bodabil, the snatcher of Sta. Cruz…” volunteered an onlooker of the dama game.

“I remember the name, but not the face…” shared another. “He stabbed the friend of a friend. Let me correct myself, my guess is that he is a member of a big-time kidnap-for-ransom syndicate with reward money on his head.”

The unwritten rule among gangsters in the area was that there was hostility toward anyone who harmed their kind. Often what determined which gang ruled over a territory was the clandestine support given by some members of the police who demanded protection money. Whichever gang delivered on a consistent basis their end of the unwritten contract with the police was assured of continued operation of whatever underground business they were into.

Quiapo had been a prime location for gangsters as it was for men of the cloth. It need not be said that in this church, clergymen collected bumper harvests from devotees—although they represented just a small portion of total donations collected during mass—that flocked to the church every day. Those harvests were made more abundant during Sundays and Fridays. Even priests from faraway places could request, especially if they had connections to the hierarchy, to officiate one of the Friday masses on the ground that they needed extra funds for their respective parishes, such as when they got hit by calamities. The immortal joke was that the calamities included fellow priests getting their girlfriends pregnant.  

The crowd attracted predators of all kinds—snatchers, swindlers, sellers of fake items, petty criminals, organized criminals, etc. Like barracudas that ambush a school of mackerel, these predators, some of them itinerant just like many of the churchgoers who came from faraway places, freely pounced on unsuspecting prey.  

Quiapo was also a haven for beggars. Devotees who came to either ask or thank the Black Nazarene for whatever favor they felt had been granted to them were likely to cast sympathetic eyes upon the downtrodden.

“Let’s take a look, shall we?” It was a command, not a question, from the one who most likely was the boss.

The Bodabil they were referring to was Yago to his friends and acquaintances in the Sta. Cruz area. In the hierarchy of the underworld, he was the thief among all thieves. Specializing in snatching and pickpocketing, he could have easily won grand slam titles if awards were given to sleight-of-hand artists. He was so good at his craft that he once stole a 24-carat gold necklace from the pool of stolen items being kept at the safehouse maintained by Police Officer Domingo “Madis-ogon” de Sabado, one of Sir Dikomo’s sidekicks. Madis-ogon had a three-day window within which to determine if claimants (victims of theft) that came forward were known to him, or known to his relations, friends, or fellow policemen. If after three days no one came forward to complain with the police, Madis-ogon would proceed to sell the stolen goods through his network of fence buyers. Pawning these hot items was also common practice, especially when the need for cash was urgent. Proceeds were divided among the team, with Madis-ogon and the thief who brought in the stolen item getting the lion’s share. Madis-ogon in turn shared the loot with some of his accomplices at the police station.

The standard procedure at the police station was to reassure complainants of theft that the police would let them know in the event the thief was apprehended and the stolen item was recovered. Complainants were then requested to leave their addresses or contact numbers at the help desk.

When a victim came forward to complain with the police and the latter was able to determine later within the three-day window period that he or she was fair game, the item stolen from him/her went to the selling or pawning block. Otherwise, Madis-ogon would come out to produce the stolen item and return it to the victim, who then would normally show his or her appreciation to the policeman by offering thank-you gifts. Testimonials praising Madis-ogon were told and retold in the neighborhood. In a hypothetically morbid event that Madis-ogon passed away today, mourners praising his good deeds would far outnumber those cheering the end of his worldly existence.  

Yago used to be a freelancer in the Tepeyac area, a few blocks northeast of Quiapo, victimizing mostly students. Aside from pickpocketing, he also mastered the evil trick of shortchanging customers when he moonlighted as a sidewalk vendor. The modus worked when a customer paid a large bill. He counted the change (consisting of smaller bills) before the victims’ eyes. Then he rolled with one of his concealed fingers more than half of the bills toward his palm just as he pushed, which he used as distraction, the remaining wads of bills to the waiting open palm of a victim.

While he got his “earnings” all to himself, he flirted with near-fatal mishaps in at least three instances. The first—after he snatched a necklace—was when he tripped over a boulder while fleeing from a mob. He broke one of his right ribs. This happened in 1974 when he was barely fifteen.

The second happened a year later. His pickpocket attempt went awry when he fumbled the wallet of the victim inside a passenger jeepney. The victim happened to have several companions inside the jeepney, and he got lynched. Perhaps the only reason his attackers left him alive was because of his being a minor. 

And the third—as the cheating vendor—happened when he tried to cheat a customer of the latter’s change. The would-be victim saw through his deception and, after a commotion, Yago got himself stabbed, with no clear identification of who the suspect was. The policemen who attended to the crime scene sent him to a public hospital. He was confined for three weeks.

At the hospital, the attending physician remarked that Yago was lucky the hostile weapon missed his heart by no more than an inch.

The police in the Sta. Cruz, Quiapo, and even Iztapalapa areas had a general profile of most of the people who got involved in petty crimes, either as suspect or victim, or both. The ones that brought Yago to the hospital knew that he had been a suspect more times than he had been a victim. They sent an emissary from the underground network to talk him into joining their team, supposedly the elite band of gangsters in the area.     

Aside from the fact that Yago had felt indebted to the police and their cohorts for bringing him to the hospital (and therefore helping save his life), and for settling his hospital bills (an amount that was relatively big for an itinerant gangster like him), it had become clear to him that he needed some kind of mob help: a sort of insurance or protection cover.

While returns for him were high as a freelancer, risks to his life and limb were also high. He needed alliances with whom to share his expertise. Back in the street a month later, Yago was in as a member of Madis-ogon’s elite rogue team.

At nineteen, Yago was the top producer for Madis-ogon’s gang. Within that team was his own unit—called “Bodabil,” a code name for their cover which referred to “My Way,” a cabaret house in Sta. Cruz that earned a reputation for their vaudeville shows. However, a big portion of My Way’s income came from an integrated prostitution ring it operated, which counted among its patrons the rich and famous, particularly politicians.

Aside from Yago, Bodabil consisted of veterans, namely: Ricardo “Tirador” Tacastacas, Ferdinando “El Kupitan” Biglang-awa, and Paquito “Kamao” Sarabosing—the one who “stabbed the friend of a friend.” They dabbled as on-call bouncers and referral agents for My Way. As referral agent, the team earned commissions from every amount spent by customers they sent to the establishment, including “bar fines” for the dancers, entertainers—even receptionists and waitresses—who also moonlighted as prostitutes.

Yago reinvented himself under Madis-ogon’s wings. Where before he pounced on every opportunity to steal—victimizing students, commuters, professionals, and paupers alike, even fellow thieves—he now targeted mostly patrons of other establishments that competed with My Way, especially those who showed signs of being drunk. Where before—being untrained and finding that making a living from honest labor was too complicated for him—he stole for survival, now he stole for business strategy.

Too often he heard tipsy customers—like big-time contractors and the politicians they brought along—brag about how easy it was to steal and make money from government projects. In more ways than one, Yago found meaning to and justification for his own meandering ways.