Securing Cebu City at night

Blue guard Perpecto Abisa (CDN PHOTO / MOREXETTE ERRAM)

Following the Davao City night market bomb blast that claimed the lives of 15 people and wounded 70 others last September 2, President Rodrigo Duterte placed the country under a State of Lawless Violence.

Law enforcement officials stepped up security measures to ensure that no such thing ever occurred again.

In police and military checkpoints at daytime, authorities peer through the windows of passing vehicles while gesturing towards a notice that reads:
“Please bear with us. Thank you so much for your cooperation.”

At night, their flashlights sway here and there with light beams scanning every nook and cranny of each car.

Motorists stop for inspection and more often than not, smile or nod at members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) or the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) conducting the routine checks.

The police and military efforts are viewed as a way to ensure the safety of every citizen.

The same cannot be said of security guards.

In Cebu, five people were put to jail for cracking bomb jokes at security guards who were just trying to do their job of checking bags at the mall entrance.

Are guards not being taken seriously, asked netizens reacting to news reports on the five different pranksters jailed for violation of Presidential Decree 1727 often referred to as the Anti-Bomb Joke Law.

Not a perfect job

At the heart of downtown Cebu, a lone night guard secures one of Cebu’s heritage sites.

No more than five feet tall, 55-year-old Perpecto Abisa sits comfortably on a wooden chair with his narrow eyes glued to a nearly deserted Mabini Street in Colon.

He tells Cebu Daily News that he has been working as a night guard for 30 years.

“It’s frightening and dangerous,” says Perpecto in Cebuano.

“This kind of job is what everyone describes as public service, and I agree with them,” he says.

“We serve and protect those who need protection but we also really do this for our families,” Perpecto adds.

A security guard’s job, whether in the morning or in the evening, is undeniably difficult, he says.

Once assigned at Pier 1 of the Cebu International Port, Perpecto recounts a life-threatening event, while on duty, when he drew his gun and fired several shots at a band of armed robbers.

Perpecto says that what followed was a wild goose chase in a maze of towering container vans at the port.

Guard Perpecto narrates that both parties relentlessly exchanged bullets until one member of the robbery group was shot.

“Luckily no one was killed. There was a ceasefire when one of them got hurt, and we rounded them up,” says Perpecto.

But robbers were not his only encounters as he says he also faced paranormal events.

The most unforgettable, he says, happened one night while guarding a ship anchored at the dock of Pier 1.

Tasked to secure the open deck at the ship’s lower floors where the surface of the sea was just an arm’s length, he stumbled upon an unexpected guest, a lady dressed in white who found her way into the deck.

Perpecto recounts that he couldn’t see her feet and face.

Panic drove him to draw out his gun and pull the trigger but the “lady”, he says, only dissipated when he splashed a bucket of seawater on the floating image.

Today, Perpecto works as a guard for the Cathedral Museum of Cebu.

The father of three is not afraid of urban legends, such as tales of a headless priest walking around, associated with old places like the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral.

Perpecto is a devout Roman Catholic who firmly believes that having faith in God is the only way to avoid harm.

“There are no ghosts in here. There are a lot of saints upstairs guarding us,” he says of the church’s compound.

In his four years as a guard for the ecclesiastical museum, he says he hasn’t encountered anything strange yet, aside from the usual banging of the doors and flickering of the lights as if to signal a kind of “presence”.

There are times, he says, when he can just see from the corner of his eyes, ghosts dressed in old clothes wandering inside the ancient bahay-na-bato.

“The only thing that can stop guards from doing their work is their imagination running loose in their minds,” he says.

“Had I made a big deal out of these things, I would have already resigned from this job,” says Perpecto.

“But having nothing to eat for you and your family is even scarier than the ghosts rumored to be roaming in this museum at night,” he adds.

Perpecto points out that he is not afraid of the dead; but of the living for unlike the dead, the living can do harm to others even without provocation.

The presence of security guards, for instance, is often taken for granted, if not considered a nuisance by people who give them a smirk every time they inspect bags for security.

As for Perpecto, he continues to work with a smile on his lips; proud to be a night guard who has tried, for 30 years, to keep everyone and everything around him, safe.