Benny

*Warning: This story contains violence based on the true story of the countless victims of the “War on Drugs” regime in the Philippines. https://time.com/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-drug-war-local-photographers/

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That’s the thing about this city, it never changes. Empty lots turn into subdivisions, old buildings get torn down to put up even bigger ones, and the exuberant little kids playing in the streets suddenly become grandparents stuffing their grandchildren with endless supplies of Choc Nut candy. But the chaotic ignorance that dwells within the hearts of the people is an undying entity rooted too deep to be persuaded; it has always been there, and it will never go away.

In the streets of Manila, blood is the common language.

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I first met him four years before the incident. He was the one who approached me along with that skeevy smile and enigmatic charisma of his. He lightly caressed my right ear while I was having some problems at the cafeteria vending machine. I didn’t really know how to react at first because who would ever expect something like that to happen while trying to buy a can of Sprite from the vendo. It took me a couple of seconds to process what actually happened. I remember thinking that a bee or a huge fly might have flown by, brushing past my ear, but then I didn’t hear a buzzing sound and I noticed that the guy walking by to my right saw what happened and was looking at something behind me with a slightly puzzled expression. I turned around to see that the something was actually someone. His head was tilted at an angle with his hand rested on his hips. He looked like a perverted teapot. I felt like punching him in the face, but being the reserved and silent type, I couldn’t do anything but just stare at him with intense bewilderment.

“Need help, bud?” he asked smiling slyly.

Completely confused, I gave no reply.

“Here,” he said tenderly while reaching out his hand holding a crispy clean orange twenty-peso bill.

Apparently he noticed that the vendo had not been complying with me, so he walked over from his table to lend me a hand. I was already at my fifth try of smoothening my orange bill against my thighs after the vendo had rejected it the first four tries. I refused to take the bill from him, telling him that I had some extra coins in my pocket -- which was a lie. I didn’t want to accept his kindness partly because I didn’t trust him, and because I didn’t like being indebted to someone. However, he continued to insist saying that we could swap orange bills since he wasn’t planning on buying anything from the vendo, so I eventually accepted his offer. We became close friends after that unusual encounter.

His name was Benny. We never became classmates in our four years of high school, but we were inseparable. The other kids at school called us Yin and Yang which I thought was fitting because of our polar opposite personalities. He was the dynamic overly high-spirited presence with unpredictable zeal while I was the timid kid seated at the very back of the class and barely ever said a word. I didn’t mind being the dull one in the duo; I enjoyed spending time with Benny. I always felt that there was this delicate flux of harmonious balance in the atmosphere every time we were together.

After school I would always find Benny waiting outside my classroom. It was our routine to head out for merienda at the bakery near the school: Mang Lauro’s. We would finish a whole brown bag of bread spread with Mang Lauro’s signature Coconut Jam. While eating we would talk about who in our class pissed us off the most, which teacher had the biggest breasts, and sometimes even our dreams for the future. Though it was mostly just him talking. There was always something happening with him, some never-ending barrage of drama that seemed to follow him everywhere he went. He was famous in school for his eccentric and emphatic behavior, so it was just natural for him to get on the nerves of the teachers and some of the kids at school. He consistently got in fights (which I hear he won most of the time), got sent to the principal’s office on a daily basis for vandalizing the school’s comfort rooms (spray-painted penises), and got slapped by girls more times than he can remember for telling perverted jokes out loud in class. After eating he would walk home while I got picked up by my family driver.

It was also part of our routine for me to pay for everything. I paid for our daily after-school merienda, I paid for the tickets to the movies, I paid for his share in the school’s extracurricular programs. This semi-charity of mine started the one time when I went with him when he sneaked out of class to buy a calculator at the school supplies shop -- he had a math test for his next class, but he didn’t have a calculator. He passed by my classroom and signaled for me to go with him, so I asked permission from my teacher to go to the bathroom. At the counter while paying for the calculator, he reached into his wallet and gave the lady at the counter a dismayed look. He said that he didn’t realize that he didn’t have enough money, but he was really desperate, so he begged to the lady if he could pay for the calculator some other time, she could put a tab on him. The lady said no since it was against school rules, so I decided to pay for the calculator myself. He was overjoyed and said that he would pay me back some time, but I told him that he didn’t have to. Ever since that it’s kind of been a silent and mutual agreement between us for me to pay for everything. Yes, I know, I was naïve, innocent, and clueless. People said that I was being gullible, and he was taking advantage of me, but it never really felt that way for me. I always felt like that was how things were supposed to be, it was the natural flow of the mutual reciprocity between the two of us. I thought of it that way because of the obvious gap in our socio-economic backgrounds.

Benny was part of the school’s academic scholar program. He lived in the slums with his parents. His mother a cleaning lady, his father a construction worker. As poor as his family was, he gave them a glimmer of hope; he was a genius. He consistently got the highest scores in tests, won every interschool math and science competition, and by junior high he was already being offered a college scholarship by our school. He may have been a bit of a nuisance, constantly getting into unnecessary trouble, but the school needed him. Benny was the main source of our school’s positive PR: genius boy from impoverished family in the slums given an opportunity by prestigious school to reach success. Getting rid of him would have meant negative reception from SJWs and a stain on the school’s vain reputation. And Benny knew that the school needed to keep him around until he graduated college which was why he had the confidence to do all the stupid shit he did.

I was your typical rich kid studying in a prestigious private school. I was born privileged and kept hidden away from the brutalities of the real world. Both my parents worked in corporate and managed to stash enough money to buy themselves their “dream home” in a private village in the bourgeois part of the district, hidden away from its impoverished and congested counterpart. I grew up in that sheltered village being neighbors with B-list celebrities and lawyers of lesser-known politicians. And since I was an only child, and my parents were mostly busy with work, I grew up in a lonely household.

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Two years before the incident, the War on Drugs started. The president issued a nationwide purging of drug-related criminals in the country. The targets were mainly the poorest slums with the most crowded population. For a while all you saw on the news were blood and dead bodies. The words “drugs” and “killings” were etched into the minds of adults and children alike. Then there was also the rift between the two factions in the country: the people who supported the violence and those who didn’t. Hundreds and thousands of families were being affected, but to me, it was all just a slight fuss in the background.

My most direct association with the War on Drugs was Benny, he was vocal about his support for the government. He said that it was good for the country because it was solving two major problems: overpopulation and drugs. The good for nothings of the country were being rid off while the major dip in the drug market was saving the lives of the youth prone to addiction. “This is the best thing that has happened in the country for years,” Benny said.

Things were starting to get chippy at school. Benny had verbal warfare with teachers who preached the students about the negative effects the War on Drugs had on the country, telling them that they were probably drug addicts themselves. He started a fistfight with his classmate in the middle of class after this classmate of his finished his presentation about the economic downfall of the country under the current government.

On the internet he was just as ruthless. He was active on social media, commenting violent replies on posts of the anti-government, sending them death threats using fake accounts, and he even started a Facebook group for the young supporters of the “Greatest Government in Philippine History”.

Even at Mang Lauro’s it was all he could talk about. Every day it was nonstop yapping about how great the president was, how influential he was, he’s gonna go down in history as this and that blah blah blah. As enthusiastic of a person as he always was, I never saw him that hopeful for the future.

I never understood his unbreakable commitment in the government until I went to his house. Turned out his parents were hardcore supporters of the government themselves. At the front of their house, they had a huge tarpaulin of the president making a fist with the slogan “Change is Coming” hanging on the piece of galvanized iron which served as their roof. The walls of their house were stacks of unpainted cement blocks, the floor was also bare cement, there were no actual windows, just two missing cement blocks at the front, and there was a bare slab of wood, about an inch shorter than me, to serve as the door.

Benny moved the slab of wood to the side and invited me inside. The entire interior was about half the size of my classroom, and because of the lack of air flow or any sort of ventilation other than the two rectangular holes by the door, it was a fucking microwave in there. I was sweating like I just ran a full marathon and I had never regretted wearing skinny jeans more in my life. As I wiped my eyes covered with sweat using the back of my hand, a hand suddenly clasped onto my shoulder.

Benny’s parents welcomed me in with an atmosphere of both excitement and curiosity – it was the first time we’d ever met. Benny’s father, wearing an excessively stained white tank top and boxer briefs, removed his hand from my shoulder after introducing himself with a childlike zest. Benny’s mother, wearing a worn-out floral-patterned duster, was fixing the preparations on the dining table, an old beat-up wooden desk drawer that looked like it had just been picked up from a junk shop. On it were four plates with a Spam sandwich on each of them and in the middle of the table was a party sized order of Pancit Palabok from Amber’s. Benny’s parents offered me a stool and told me to eat as much as I wanted. The four of us ate and talked for a little while before singing a happy birthday song for Benny.

Benny’s mother didn’t talk much but his father left quite the impression on me; he reminded me of Benny in so many ways that it was almost terrifying. They had the same carefree radiance, always saying things with full conviction, not caring if they would offend anyone. They had the same smile, something bordering between mischievous and innocent. Even their postures were the same, head tilted at an angle when talking, hand rested at hips -- perverted teapot. And there was also the hardcore War on Drugs government fanatic engraved in both of them.

For hours on end, they rambled about how much better the city is now, the slums are becoming a safer place, Change is Coming, all because of the ongoing nationwide purge. To them it was the necessary and long needed violence the country needed. Benny’s father asked me for my thoughts and all I could do was agree with him to avoid any undesired conflict.

After the party ended, I said my goodbyes to Benny’s parents and greeted Benny with one last happy birthday before heading to the nearby McDonald’s where I told my driver to pick me up.

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A year before the incident, Benny and I were at Mang Lauro’s. We were in our senior year of high school, so we were discussing our plans for college. I was leaning towards getting a marketing degree in the same college my dad went while he was planning on taking up political science with the scholarship he’d been offered. That day was also the first time he paid for his half of the merienda.

“Don’t worry about it bro, I’ll pay for my half from now on,” Benny said while smiling and putting a hand on my shoulder.

The lady at the bakery counter who’d been selling us the best Coconut Jam in the country for the past three years went over to us and started a conversation.

“So you kids are gonna be in college soon huh? Who would’ve thought this day would come?” the lady said before she gave us a bag of bread and two cans of Coconut Jam.

“That’s how it is,” Benny said while happily accepting the freebies.

The lady asked us about our plans for the future and told us not to forget to come by from time to time.

“Hey, I’ll still be studying around here, it’s this guy that you should be worrying about,” Benny said putting his hand on my shoulder again.

It was true that I would not be able to come by the bakery as often as I would want since my college was pretty far. My parents bought me a condo unit, where I’d be staying until I graduated, near the campus.

Then she said something I wish she never had.

“You kids take care now. The streets are getting more dangerous everyday with all these police shooting their guns at anyone who looks slightly suspicious. It makes me sad that your generation had to grow up during these times where the country’s just getting worse and worse,” the lady said shaking her head.

You could only imagine what Benny’s reaction was: he had the same surge of fury on his face as he did when in the middle of a fistfight or when replying to anti-government posts on the internet. He had a verbal argument with the lady to put it mildly. I had to hold him off and calm him down before dragging him out of the bakery. We left the free bread and the Coconut Jam. We never came back.

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On the day of the incident, I was on the way to meet with Benny for his birthday. It was a Friday evening and I just came from class. I was driving to the McDonald’s near Benny’s neighborhood. He worked there part-time, and he told me I could I leave my car parked there while celebrating his birthday at his house.  

After meeting with Benny, who was still wearing his white polo shirt with black bandana McDonald’s uniform, we walked to his house which was a ten-minute walk away. We tried to catch up with each other along the way.

“My parents have been really excited to see you again. You haven’t visited for a while,” Benny said smiling.

Even if we hadn’t seen each other for almost a year, it felt like it was just yesterday that we were having a fight over who gets the last piece of bread at Mang Lauro’s.

When we arrived at the street where Benny’s house was, there was a commotion. There were hordes of people circled around the way to his house, all trying to get a look at the direction of exactly where Benny’s house was. They were people from around the neighborhood. The people at the back seemed to be as confused and curious as we were while the people up front let out occasional shrieks of shock and were gossiping to each other in horror.

“What’s happening here?” Benny kept questioning around.

Someone, a middle-aged lady who seemed to know who Benny was, came to him crying and grasped both of his shoulders.

“Benny, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said while her words were being flooded with tears.

Benny forced himself into the crowd, squeezing through people, pushing out people in his way. I followed him into the center of attention. What we saw would forever change everything.

Right in front of Benny’s house were both of his parents, out in the street. Benny’s father was on the floor, in the arms of Benny’s mother. There was a pool of blood underneath them – the blood seemed to be flowing from the body of Benny’s father. The stained white tank top of Benny’s father was covered with blood, and so was the rest of his body, and the arms of his wife. His eyes were open but lifeless. Benny’s mother was crying in pure anguish while she was being covered with the blood of her dead husband; her howls that night was the most agonizing sound I have ever heard, and they still haunt me to this day.

There was a piece of cardboard with splashes of blood placed on the floor near the body of Benny’s father. There was a writing on it: “I’M A DRUG PUSHER”.   

The look on Benny’s face was something I would never forget. The look of disbelief, wrath, and desolation all mixed into a single vile expression; it was the look of someone betrayed to the most extreme sense. His stance was firm, his hands clenched, his eyes unblinking. He shed not a single tear that night, but the pain I saw from the look on his face was something you’d never wish anyone to bear.

As the sound of police sirens were getting louder, the tarpaulin hanging on the Benny household’s roof was swaying in the wind: the president making a fist, Change is Coming.

After the incident, I never saw Benny again. He just suddenly disappeared, leaving his mother, his part-time job, his college scholarship, and any other responsibilities he had within the city. He didn’t even stay long enough for his father’s funeral. The only people who went to the funeral were me, Benny’s mother, and Benny’s uncle. I have no idea where he is or what happened to him. I heard from some of the people we went to high school with that he went to the mountains to join the New People’s Army (a communist group of rebels situated in the Philippine countryside), and others said that he ended up in jail. Wherever he is, I hope he’s not lost.

In the streets of Manila, blood is the closer.