Rough translation: “It’s embarrassing to ask a person to pay you back the money he owes you, the money you worked hard for.”

While still in Vienna, someone in the Phils I knew from my boyhood asked me several times via FB to get him a bottle of a designer EDT, promising to pay me when I get home in January this year. He followed it up with several reminders lest I forget. Friends and relatives who knew him warned me, but I didn’t listen. Walter, my friend, doubted I would ever see my money back again. Give him a chance, I said. Let him prove that he was not the person people thought he was. (I lost touch with him until that “sad” day in May last year when I bumped into him in a mall).

He got the EDT alright. But, unfortunately, I didn’t get paid. His church employer does not pay them on time, his alibi. So he has yet to get paid for December. Faking embarrassment, he asked if I would mind waiting until the end of January. No big deal, I said. He left with a smile on his face, my EDT safe in his bag.

I never saw him again after that. He was offended when I sent him a private message reminding him of his obligation. Said he didn’t forget; that he would drop by my place before the week was over. I waited. And waited. Still waiting to this day – it is now the 11th of May.

He doesn’t run out of excuses. Once, he said he was in Cebu. Ostensibly, the Bishop told him – on short notice – to attend an international Catholic conference. He would get in touch with me upon his return. Hohum! Another time he was in Lingayen on a religious retreat – he could not say no to the Bishop. (Drat, Your Eminence!) He would cut his spiritual retreat short and come home, he said, so that he could pay me.

Not wanting to risk eternal damnation of my poor ass (for disrupting his one-on-one with the Lord), I suggested that he could use money forwarding services instead. Good, he said. I believed him, but he did not keep his word. It’s not much money he owes me (roughly €100), but I get furious when I realize that I trust people easily. That I never learn my lesson is sad. This incident brings back to mind what my sister told me many years ago, and she keeps rubbing it in, that there’s no cure for being tanga (idiot). I always hope – against hope – that there is a cure. I am incurable, she said.

That same day, a cousin told me he came across this person in a pharmacy shop in my hometown. My cousin reminded me of his overdue utang (debt), aware of the story. He assured her he would see me sometime later that day. No show! He could not find the way to my paradise. The way to hell was much easier to find for this congenital liar!

Isumbong ko ba kay Tulfo o kay Duterte? (Should I complain to Tulfo or Duterte?) A friend in uniform volunteered to take care of my problem. Hmm!