Poverty, Abuse Force Davao’s Children to the Streets

Richard, the second of the Alia children, had been an excellent dancer. “He dreamed of someday being part of a dance group,” Nanay Clarita recalls. But dancing was not a good enough diversion for Richard to stay off the streets. He managed to finish Grade 4 and soon joined the aptly named Notorious Gang.

Richard had had numerous run-ins with the law. In 2000, he was accused of stabbing another minor; he spent two months in jail for that. The next year, he was shot and wounded allegedly by the nephew of a traffic aide. The shooting was apparently an act of vengeance by the nephew, who was earlier manhandled by Richard’s younger brother, Bobby. “Richard vowed to exact revenge against those who shot him,” Nanay Clarita says. But he never got around doing that and was killed on July 17, 2001.

Christopher was jailed in 1997 for rugby use, when he was barely 12 years old. He was sent twice to a rehabilitation center. The first time, in 2000, he escaped. Later, he ended up in jail and was released in July 2001. On October 20, 2001, Christopher became the second Alia boy to be knifed to death.

Bobby had also been jailed, but his charge was illegal possession of a deadly weapon. Like Christopher, he had been placed in the rehabilitation center, from which he escaped after three months. On November 3, 2002, Bobby, too, was stabbed dead.

After Richard’s death, Bobby had joined a gang called Emergency because he was afraid he would be targeted next. Each time they ran into trouble, the Alia brothers would not run to their mother for help. Instead, they would go to their gangmates. “If not these gangs, who would defend them?” asks Nanay Clarita. “They told me they could not be alone in the streets because they would be easy prey.”

“I wish we still had that TV set,” she says, crying. Yet one look at the family’s miserable shack dispels any notion that it would be a place teenagers would want to while their time away in, TV or no TV.

The sad truth is that, aside from the sorry physical state of the home, there were other factors why Nanay Clarita’s children found the streets far more appealing. Their parents’ relationship, for instance, was one of constant bitterness and rancor. Cornelio, a notorious slacker in Bankerohan, would berate Nanay Clarita in front of their children, calling her offensive names and accusing her of having affairs with other men. Cornelio would also physically abuse her and her children. One time, he even nearly strangled the then five-year-old Richard to death.

“My children would tell me that if their father went ahead with his ways, they themselves would kill him,” Nanay Clarita says. Their father finally left them, but by then it was already too late to wean them away from the streets and the gangs.

“I tried to make things easier for them, by making sure that they had breakfast before going to school, by buying them notebooks, by washing their uniforms in the middle of the night,” says Nanay Clarita. “Each time they flunked, I would re-enroll them but their teachers would tell me I shouldn’t do it any more because I was just wasting my money.”

Soon, even going to school ceased to become an option for the children. It was achievement enough that Richard made it to Grade 4. In comparison, Christopher and Bobby managed to finish only Grade 1.

It only took a while before the Alia boys became notorious in Bankerohan. “Ask any police officer in Bankerohan or the CSU (Civilian Security Unit) and they would say that my children are almost always the first suspects in any crime here,” Nanay Clarita herself says. Neighbors would also accuse the children of being thieves, sometimes physically abusing them.