Alamang Boy

Alamang Boy is an adventure story arc of the Philippine comic strip series "Pugad Baboy", created by Pol Medina Jr. and originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. This particular story arc lasts 26 strips long. In 1996, the story arc was reprinted in "Pugad Baboy 7", the seventh book compilation of the comic strip series.

ynopsis

Tomas has lost a goat he had brought home from a trip to Ilocos. A security guard of Pugad Baboy soon brings Tomas two suspects in the goat-rustling issue. These, however, claim that they confessed to the crime under torture (being forced to repetitively listen to the José Mari Chan song "Beautiful Girl"). A second set of suspect were rounded up and dismissed after no real evidence could be brought to bear against them.

After a while, Ka Noli brings Tomas a young girl who claims to be an eye witness to the crime. She fingers Senator Cabalfin's son, Bong (nicknamed in this story arc as "Hurricane Hughbert"), as the person who stole the goat. Further interrogation by Tomas and Noli unearthed several more facts: the girl, identified as Juicyka A. was part of a gang of kids who liked to achieve a "light-headed" high by drinking coffee and eating monosodium glutamate-laced food. She later executes an affidavit stating that she was part of the group that met at the Pugad Baboy commercial center parking lot to score some "vetsin" for their jam session. She also stated that aside from being addicted to coffee and Chinese food, the group stole green mangoes from the neighbors' trees and they ate these dipped in "bagoong alamang" (shrimp paste). From this, the media labeled the group as the "Alamang Boys" (a play on the Ayala Alabang Village, an affluent residential community in Muntinlupa City).

As the case went to court, Senator Cabalfin reacted strongly to these claims, saying that if his son were convicted of the crime, he would resign from the Senate. Bong's defense states that he could not have committed the crime since during the night in question, he had attended the U2 concert at the Ultra. Another witness claims to have seen Bong at a restaurant on Visayas Avenue where the specialty was goat meat and two of the Senator's former housemaids testified that they had seen Bong eating "papaitan" (goat stew) on the night Tomas' goat was reported missing. They also claimed to have seen goat hair, horns and hooves strewn on the kitchen floor, but that these were later burned by the Senator's driver.

The presiding judge handed down the verdict: guilty. As sentence, the judge placed his hands over Bong's eyes, had everyone in the courtroom stand in single file, and ordered everyone to give the accused a single pinch.

Tomas was ecstatic; he felt that justice had prevailed. However, He and Noli soon discover that the goat wasn't missing at all. It must have just been taking a walk around and had returned to Tomas. In order to hide the evidence of a mistrial, Tomas turned the goat into "pulutan" (finger food) for one of his and Noli's drinking sessions.

Trivia

* This story arc has parallelisms with the Vizconde multiple murder case, also known as the Vizconde massacre.
* Juicyka A's character is patterned after Maria Jessica M. Alfaro, a prominent witness for the prosecution during the case's trial.
* "Hurricane Hughbert" is an oblique reference to Hubert Webb, one of the accused in the Vizconde case and the son of former Senator Freddie Webb.
* Ramon Tulfo (known here as "T. Mulfo") and Rene Saguisag (hired by the Cabalfins "pro bono"), who at one time or another had been associated with the Vizconde case, also make cameos in this story arc. Also making a cameo is comedian Leo Martinez as "his" stand-up character, Tongressman Manhik Manaog, proposing to change the name of Visayas Avenue in Quezon City into "Ilocanos Avenue" (because of the numerous Ilocano restaurants there).

External links

* [http://www.manilatimes.net/others/special/2005/jan/17/20050117spe1.html Manila Times Special Report on the Vizconde Case]
* [http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2005/dec/23/yehey/opinion/20051223opi2.html Rene Saguisag's Opinion regarding the Vizconde Case]