‘I am Crime’

I remember two of my classmates in elementary, Robin and Cecil, who were always daring each other. Cecil once dared Robin to lie down on Shaw Boulevard and he did. He caused a major traffic jam and had to be whisked off by a cop. Another time, when they were in National Book Store, Robin dared Cecil to get a strip of tape from the tape dispenser near the cashier and stick the tape on the arm of the cashier. Cecil did it. I think they are still banned from National up to this day. One time, they were on a bus, and the bus conductor asked for their fare.

"Bayad ninyo?" the conductor demanded. And Cecil answered, "Anong bayad? ‘Di mo ba ako kilala?"

"Bakit, sino ka ba?" retorted the conductor. And Cecil replied, "Ako si Crime! ‘Di mo ba alam ang kasabihan na ‘Crime does not pay’?"

If memory serves me correctly, they were kicked out of the bus while it was running at 90 miles per hour. I think they survived, though.

THE CRIMINAL IN ALL OF US

To a certain extent, Cecil was right. He was Crime. In fact, all of us are Crime – or, to make it more grammatically correct, we are all criminals.

Every day, we all commit crimes – some, petty, and some, big. The only difference between prisoners and us is that we haven’t been caught, tried and convicted by a court of law. And, perhaps, they have better tattoos than we do.

I can give lots of examples of the crimes we’ve committed: destroying a person’s name or reputation, taping a song playing on the radio or a music video on TV, not declaring all your income to the BIR, failing to deliver all the services you promised to a customer (tantamount to cheating and stealing), giving alms to the vagrants in the streets (which is against the law), beating a red light, jaywalking, spitting or urinating in public, littering, having heavily tinted car windows, driving without a license, issuing a bogus receipt, not issuing a receipt at all, not declaring your true income when getting a cedula, undervaluing a real estate transaction in order to avoid paying the correct tax, photocopying a book, buying a fake VCD, rumor-mongering, bribing a cop after being caught for a traffic violation, preparing a false affidavit of loss. Man, I can go on and on.

And how do we justify all this? We just shrug our shoulders and say, "Hey, who would know?"

OK, I’m not about to go preachy here. I’m not about to say "Tsk tsk tsk – shame on you people" and be a self-righteous bastard. There are enough of those in the world already and I’m not about to encroach on their turf. I guess my whole point in bringing this up is because of our tendency to judge people, which is our national pastime.

Flick on the TV on a typical weekend afternoon, and all you’ll see are talk shows. And although they’ll never say they are judging people ("Walang personalan!"), most of the time when they do talk about someone, it’s in a way that the viewer cannot avoid but make a judgment on the person being lambasted. This weekend showbiz chismis habit is all ingrained in all of us – and it is a microcosm of what we all are.

Whenever someone enters a restaurant, he or she will be stared at from head to foot and judged accordingly. "Baduy naman nang suot niyan!" or "What kind of hairstyle is that?!!!" or "Ano namang klaseng color combination ‘yan?!" or "What’s a beautiful girl like her doing with a dopey-looking guy like him?!" I’m sure you’ve experienced that one time or another – either as the judge or the "judged."

Don’t you simply find it irritating? By the way, when was the last time you were eating in a restaurant with a group and a couple enters, and you all said, "Hey, there goes a nice looking couple" or "I like the way those two carry themselves"? I bet it’s been a long time – if it has happened at all.

Truth is, all of us are very quick to judge other people, but when it comes to judging ourselves, we try to avoid it at all costs. Worse, we are quick to tell others how we feel about a certain person, if only to avoid being the subject of the judgment of others. And again, I am not exempting myself. I do it, too.

Is there something we could do about it? A national habit is hard to break overnight. But maybe, just maybe, admitting that there’s something wrong – that we all are "guilty as charged" – would be a good start. And then, hopefully, we can find a way to solve it.

Like Cecil, my friend, we should all tell ourselves, "I am Crime." Yes, we are Crime – we are all criminals. But, unlike what Cecil said, Crime does pay. We will have to pay for all the evil we have done. It’s the law of nature. In the Bible, it is said, "What you reap is what you sow." For other people, there’s the Law of Karma. What goes around comes around.

So, next time someone calls you a crook or a criminal, tell that person, "Hey, how did you know?" Because you know what? He’s right.

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Thanks for you e-mails, folks! You may e-mail me at rodnepo@ yahoo.com.