1st/3rd world Tambays

“More than half of those arrested have been sent home after they were given warnings.”

VANCOUVER, Canada — Filipinos here welcomed the quick change in weather as summer officially comes to embrace ‘Beautiful British Columbia.’

It’s like the Philippine weather. Just like home, they say.

School’s out since last week and summer’s good for three months.

The clean streets roll out a welcome sight of strollers, very young skateboarders, old men and women in canes and quite a number of shirtless, tattooed guys in their wheelchairs — mostly veterans from past wars fought in other shores.

Yes, they’re shirtless. The friendly sun comes not much for them, so they go out of their homes for the “happy vitamin D.”

Common sightings in parks and lakes are women in bikinis and men in shorts. Women in their bras loiter there, too.

Ogopogo, or Naitaka the lake demon, has not been seen since these “tambays” came.

Filipino-Canadians this rubbernecker had met, laughed at my description of them as “tambays.” They are free to do what they want. Canada is a free country anyway and they can loiter anytime they want.

But the Philippines is a free country, too. That’s how they knew the Philippines when they left several years ago.

Some of them have some apprehensions of coming back. The others claim they like what they are seeing.

News about the arrest of more than 25,000 “tambays” over the last weeks is a novelty for them. But it’s not for the poor communities back home.

Unlike here, lack of space and poverty are issues that could not be detached from the PNP-initiated “anti-loitering” campaign.

In many communities, people sleep outside of their cramped houses. Others stay in benches and even pavements.

They do not have lawns and gazebos to hold parties in.

They drink in front of sari-sari stores. They smoke where it is convenient for them to do so.

They walk where their feet take them before they return home for the night.

Local laws abridging the Filipino’s right of movement is also a major issue that has to be settled as loitering is no longer a crime under the Revised Penal Code.

It was decriminalized in 2012 when former President Benigno Aquino III signed Republic Act 10158. The law amended Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code to decriminalize vagrancy, except for prostitutes.

Local governments should visit their ordinances to make sure they do not curtail the freedoms of their people, including their freedom of movement.

More than half of those arrested have been sent home after they were given warnings.

Many of them were caught for smoking in public, drinking in public places, minors found outside of their houses in the wee hours of the night, half-naked loiterers and some other minute violations of local ordinances.

The Pinoys here could only shake their heads.