LagLag Bala: Do Not Visit The Philippines Just Yet

Photo by Tony Webster (Own work)

What Is Laglag Bala? A scheme wherein bullets are being planted onto one's luggage with the purpose of extorting money from the victims.

Where Is it Taking Place? Philippines' Airport, Ninoy Aquino International Airport

When Will They Strike? Anytime.

Who Are the Target? Anyone, could be You.

Me and Dada had been very disappointed on how this scam is currently being handled by the Philippines Government. It seemed that they are very persuasive on the thought that this is NOT happening. What made us more concerned and anxious is because we are about to fly to El Nido this November.

Excitement had been replaced by fear of the "what-ifs". The least that we can expect is to have an on-time flight and worst is to be victimized by this scam and be extorted with a lot of thousands of pesos and be held by corrupt officials.

I know how social media and the likes can serve as an efficient way of communication and propaganda. The power of it cannot belittled however, for this instance, it seemed that those in the higher authorities are still ignoring the fact and denying what seemed all over Facebook, Google, Youtube etc. They were claiming that there’s no truth to this. But, how can they explain the incident of a 20-year old American Boy who had recently been victimized and extorted Php 30,000?! I guess they can’t and maybe they wouldn’t. How can they even do that when in fact the stepmom of this 20-year old American Boy had recorded the incident without the officials knowing and when they learned about it, you’d see in their facial expressions how devastated they were. Busted!

There are a lot of things to love about the Philippines, like the hospitality of Filipino men and women, the beaches, forestry and mountains but I warn you to NOT TO visit Philippines until this get resolved. DO NOT VISIT THE PHILIPPINES. However, if you are persistent about going here NOW, I strongly recommend to clear wrap all of your luggage inclusive of purses or hand-carry bags. If you must, place duct tapes or packing tapes on all the zippers and mini compartments of the bags.

In case, you are victimized I have some “references” on what you should do:

• Remain Calm.
• Remember, you have the right to remain silent
• If you have a camera phone, it won’t hurt to record everything especially when your luggage are being brought to the X-Ray Scanners
• Never touch the bullet once shown to you.
• Never plead guilty.
• Do not tolerate them by giving or offering an amount of money just for you to be released.
• Contact an attorney, one of the kind senators here in the Philippines, well known on most part of the World, Manny Pacquiao provides free legal assistance thru Atty. Jojo Bondoc, 0920-921-1162

(Seemed to me Pacquiao is the only one who is trying to do something about it…)

So, I hope all the best for everyone AND THIS COUNTRY, but if you were to ask me, I really cannot recommend Philippines for now as a great travel destination until such time the government can assure safety against this cruel-scheme.

What do you think about this?