A Pro Con

A couple of months back just before the May 14 national and local elections in the Philippines, a girl of about 16 - 18 years old, who claimed to be a resident of our city (Tarlac City), came to our office to ask for financial assistance from our City Mayor (my boss) to help her get text votes so she can win a popular singing contest that she was joining at the time. The contest was one of those "American Idol" rip offs being aired by one of the major networks here in the Philippines which I'd rather not name for purposes of anonymity (GMA Channel 7's Pinoy Pop Superstar. Ha! Sorry, couldn't help it). Anyway, seeing nothing unusual about that as it is quite typical here in the Philippines to directly ask politicians for money for whatever reason, I made her write a formal letter to the mayor. She did and she submitted the letter to us. The Mayor wasn't able to give her the money right away since there was an election ban going and electoral candidates were prohibited from handing out money to the people. The kid came back several times pleading that she be given the financial assistance that she needed but we kept explaining to her that she'll have to wait until after the elections. Right after the polls, she came back with the news that she had already won the contest. None of us in the office watched the show so we haven't the faintest idea if she really won. Lucky for her, the mayor (who also didn't watch the show) was at the office that time she visited so I told her to talk to the mayor directly and to tell him the "good news". She did. She introduced herself to the mayor saying that she was Maricris Garcia and that she was the grand champion of Pinoy Pop Superstar, etc. etc. And the mayor, quite glad that someone from his city won such a popular contest, congratulated her and handed her P5,000.00 from his own pocket. So that was the end of it. Or so we thought. Then yesterday, the kid came back to our office inviting the mayor to some event and was kinda sweet talking him about a certain project (probably so he'll give her more "assistance", I'm not sure). When it comes to the mayor's schedules and appointments, it was customary for us to validate if the event he was being invited to is really gonna take place and if so, we need to get the details. So we did. It turned out that there was no such event and people from GMA 7 as well as Maricris' handlers were quite surprised when we told them that she was here in Tarlac City because as far as they know, she was supposed to be in Bulacan at that time. And she was indeed in Bulacan. The real Maricris Garcia, that is. The one the mayor was talking to turned out to be a con who resembles the real one quite closely. A sixteen - year - old professional con artist, who, prior to our mayor, had also "victimized" three or four other mayors. So the police was called in, an investigation was made, and the girl, being a minor, was held in some juvenile facility.

Actually, the situation I cited above isn't out of the ordinary. We encounter cons everyday. What really bugs me is how a sixteen-year-old girl can lie through her teeth without even flinching, and worse, lie straight to the mayors face. Me, I can't pull off something like that. I'd be blinking all over the place and wouldn't even be able to look anyone straight in the eye. Yeah I guess I'm a bad liar and I'd make a bad con. Anyways, it really "amazes" me what kids are capable of doing these days. They can get hold of high powered guns and shoot their classmates just for kicks, they can get hold of heroine and coke and do one or the other anytime they please (read: Lindsay Lohan), and they can come up with elaborate and risky con jobs like this one. Maybe we should watch our kids more closely co'z this is no longer just a case of playing pretend.