As if commuting in Manila’s hectic roads isn’t hard enough.
On Wednesday, Facebook user David Soterio San Jose shared a post and a Twitter thread about his experience with a gross scheme bus thieves used to distract passengers. In his post, he said that he was spat on by one guy from a group of five in an attempt to distract him and steal his belongings.
In a Twitter message to Coconuts Manila, San Jose said he remained calm but was “super nervous inside.”
He was coming from Quezon City and going to his cousin’s wake in Pasay City when the incident happened and was seated on the second row in the bus’ right side, near the door.
Check out the ew-inducing photos below.
San Jose recalled in his post that when the bus stopped to board new passengers, he heard the driver tell a woman to ‘Hide your cell phone.’
Five medium-built men entered the bus, San Jose said, and one of them sat beside him. “After he positioned himself [in the seat], he (the man) screamed in Filipino: ‘Sh*t, what is this?'”
“I looked at his right arm to find out what [it] was, and the other guy from the group pointed at my left shoulder. There was saliva on it,” he wrote.
But San Jose quickly realized that it was a scheme and that the men were trying to distract him.
“When you’re there in that moment, you would be nervous too,” he wrote. San Jose added that he kept his cool and looked them in the eye as he embraced his bag tightly.
“All of them were saying and tapping me at (sic) the shoulder to take notice and do something about it,” he said. “I think that’s their way of distracting you and their moment to take advantage of your situation. But I never did, and let that thing sit on my shoulder.”
He narrated that time went by slowly: “It was just a short distance but was the longest minutes of my life.”
He wrote that the perpetrators were persistent but that he didn’t pay them any attention. They eventually stopped bugging him, talking in a “dialect which I didn’t recognize.”
San Jose added that the man who sat beside him tapped his shoulder once again but he remained still and simply looked at the thief.
“I felt their frustration,” he shared. “They held my shoulder and my nape once again, but I just looked at them. After that, they went to the back [part of the bus].”
San Jose mentioned that the group still managed to get away with the crime. “I thought that would’ve ended with me. But after a few moments passed, the three from the group went down the bus, while the other two were casually on their way out when one of the passengers shouted, ‘My cell phone, my cell phone!'”
San Jose said the victim was blocked by the two suspects who denied the accusation before they left.
The victim got off the bus to inform the police patrolling the area of the incident, according to San Jose.
Other passengers also talked about what transpired, with San Jose sharing his own experience and showing them the proof of saliva on his shoulder.
He ended the post by telling netizens to ignore these types of thieves. “They aim to distract you and that’s the thing you should not allow to happen. Don’t give them the chance to take advantage of your situation. Otherwise, things may get worse. Learn the art of deadma (ignoring).”
The Facebook post has reached over 45,000 likes and 48,000 shares.
San Jose told Coconuts Manila that he initially wanted to get off the bus but feared that the suspects might follow him, which led him to ignore them instead.
Netizens were quick to comment about the incident he shared and urged others to be more careful when commuting:
Gian Endoma tagged a friend and wrote in Filipino: “Be extra careful, don’t panic. Don’t take out your phone when commuting too.”
JerzaineMeixi Erika Bautista said: “This is why I don’t ride the bus often.”
“I saw this kind of strategy too, but in a jeep,” Joanna Masagca Mungcal shared.
Emil John Fabian told a friend, “I read this already but their strategy is disgusting.”
Have you ever experienced anything like this? Leave a comment below or tweet us @CoconutsManila.
