Robbery Hold-up Part 2

"T'is quite better that thousand guilty men go free, than one innocent person go to jail."

-Justice Isagani Cruz

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"To err is human, to forgive is divine!"

-Alexander Pope

I offer my apologies for not updating on the crime that reshaped my thinking for the last month or so. So many things have transpired since then. So I better finish this story, in order that I move on with my life.

I forgave the person who in my utmost belief is the perpetrator of the dastardly act that surely would have taken my life if I resisted the demands of the holdupers. I went to the Office of the Chief Inquest Prosecutor of Manila, filed an Affidavit of Desistance, paid P500 for that, and gave a copy of the signed document plus the receipt to the mother of the boy. I already erased from my memory their names, but their faces are still clear to me. I just saw the mother last week, while on my way home. Of course I did not bother to wave at her, and I think that she will not wave back at me, or so I may think.

It is almost to months since I have been victimized by criminal elements from the bowels of the nation's capital on my way to school. My cellphone, which I can say to be my priciest possession so far, not only because of economic reasons, but also for informational and sentimental ones, has transfered ownership, against my will and without the courtesy of a deed of sale. Although I still have the box which could help me block the present owner from unlocking it, I am precluded from exercising my right by time. 

Now, I may ask, what good is it that I forgave the offender and did not exercise any remedy to recover my lost possession. I actually don't know. I just find it hard to comprehend, that we jail a small man for stealing because he has none to eat; while we allow and tolerate a "small woman" for stealing away things that cannot be eaten, like our dreams and hopes.