by Yas D. Ocampo
The untrained eye would
need years of training to know the difference between a flat iron and
an improvised explosive device.
The trained eye would
need time and still be unsure. Think, for a second, about a
tightly-sealed container, uncertainties and possible booby-traps.
Spike, Davao City’s
pioneer bomb-sniffer, would just need to go near a suspicious device
and find out if the situation was a ‘positive,’ meaning that a bomb
was in the said container.
Where humans rely on
technical expertise, Spike would rely on one thing we don’t have,
together with a focused training on the field: a heightened sense of
smell.
And this was what
happened eight years ago, when Spike found a bomb inside an LCI bus.
According to his handler, this is how it is done: a tandem of
personnel from the Explosives and Ordnance Division is sent with a
dog like Spike, trained to immediately crouch upon detecting
explosives.
“Kuyaw kaayo to na
bomba,” recalled SPO1 Fidel del Rio, “Del” to his team-mates.
“Ang gisudlan ato kay karton sa plantsa, unya ang explosive kay ang
plantsa mismo (The bomb was disguised as a flat-iron, placed inside a
box, the iron being hte explosive itself.)” The improvised
explosive, he said, would have injured a lot of passengers with its
cast iron shrapnel, killing some of them instantly had Spike not
detected it.
Spike has spent what to
humans would be 91 years, at 13 years old, counting 7 human years to
one dog year. Most of these years were spent serving the city. Spike
retired this week after 12 years of service.
“Kumpleto ang talent ni Spike!” del Rio shared. “Pero ang specialty niya: bomb-sniffing (Spike has a lot of talents. His specialty is bomb sniffing.)” The Belgian malinois has protected the city from explosives countless times.
On March 11, 2003,
around 9:00 pm, Spike found an explosive inside a passenger multicab.
At a checkpoint in Magallanes Street, Spike sat after sniffing
through a plastic container inside the jeep. The vehicle’s driver,
Temoteo Hedanio, would later report to investigators that five
suspicious-looking men may have brought the container with them when
they flagged the vehicle at the Matina intersection. The men
disappeared into unknown directions when checkpoint personnel
approached the vehicle.
Police later said that
although an igniter pressurized the device to explode, it could not
go off since it had no battery. Spike saved the city from a would-be
terrorist activity.
Spike has had his share
of the city’s yearly celebrations and special events – always on
patrol during the Araw ng Dabaw and Kadayawan Festivals, as well as
visits from national officials.
When we visited Spike
at the Davao Central Police Office, his comrades greeted us with
barks that boomed within the kennel’s walls. Huge dogs, I thought.
Two cells from Spike’s, a suspicious Snappy, a German shepherd who
does drug-detection, kept barking as photographer Rene Lumawag leaned
close to the bars to take Spike’s photo inside his 'room.’
The malinois would find
it hard, however, to begin sitting down or standing up. I could see
how difficult it was for him to shift between these stances: it would
always be a struggle, his 13 year old bones barely able to support
his own weight with those transitions, a heartbreaking sight for the
dog-lover in me.
By the base of Spike’s right hind legs was also a small cyst that’s been growing over the years. Del said there was nothing they could do about it anymore. The trainers at the SATU keep him happy, though.
“Kung 'negative’ gani ang search,” Del shared, referring to search operations where Spike would find no explosives on the site, “i-recalibrate dayon nako na siya.” Del Rio said that dogs have attitudes too. “Pasimhuton nako siya ug kanang dapat pangitaon basta naay search, para maganahan siya, (If the search is a 'negative,’ I’d have him sniff on an item he is supposed to search to keep him satisfied,)” he said, referring to parts of explosives that canines are trained to detect. Del would then give him a treat after each detection, either a piece of meat or a chew toy.
During idle times, Del
would ask Spike to bring him stuff from from another table. The dog
would just look where his handler would point, fetch the object with
his mouth, and place it gently in front of where Del sat.
Spike loved his work,
it would seem. Who wouldn’t? The pay was good: shelter, food, and fun
in one. His work was easy: all he had to do was sniff where told,
exercise and rest in between. And the people around him were
adventurers: Del being only one of three handlers who worked with him
at the SATU. There is health care, too: the City Veterinarian’s
office monitors him.
The kind of care given
to this aging hero of a dog befitted him. His handlers would take him
to walks at dawn and late afternoons, to protect him from the heat of
the sun. Del prefers dawn for 'Spike time,’ making sure humans, few
to none, are around to distract him.
I imagine Spike walking
around the City Police Office during each 'Spike time’ – his
adventurous self sniffing the ground with his doggy instincts.
I think it is indeed
about time that Spike receives his R&R (rest and recreation.) It
is a salute that this hero deserves from the city, one he spent his
lifetime protecting.
What endears strangers to an old man like Max is his utter lack of any need for pity. Walking along the road from General Santos, Max’s pushcart only bore the words “Journey Max,” his full name, and his prayer of a route painted in huge letters.
TAGUM CITY(MindaNews/24 March) – A septuagenarian who had planned to walkfrom General Santos City to Ormoc in Leyte with his six dogs has
obtained a free ride home with help from a dog owners association and
the city government here.
Max de Lima, 72, had
started the long walk back to the place he left around 50 years ago,
but his plight caught the attention of netizens. (The nearest point
from Mindanao to Leyte is the Lipata port in Surigao City.)
Mercy Bontilao, vice
president of the Tagum Dog Owners Association, said in an interview
Thursday at Tagum’s Rotary Park that they reached out to Max,
through friends and strangers at the Facebook page of Davao City’s
Public Safety and Security Command Center Support Group.
Bontilao said they
started hearing about the man she endearingly calls “Tatay Max,”
from people who saw him in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur and Toril, in
Davao City.
Max met up with his
family at Ormoc over the weekend with the help of Tagum City’s
local government unit.
“The LGU here lent us
a van that we could use to transport Tatay Max and his dogs to the
port,” Bontilao said.
Edwin Lasquite, officer
in charge at the Tagum City Information Office, said in an email
Wednesday night that Max made a courtesy call at Mayor Allan Rellon’s
office Tuesday.
Netizens in Davao and
nearby areas heard about Tatay Max during the Araw ng Dabaw
festivities last Monday. He was seen at Toril main highway as well as
at the main parade route downtown.
Max carried with him
all of his only possessions — pots, pails, pans, and tarps for the
rain.
“The dogs and I were
lucky that it hasn’t rained since we started walking,” Max said.
The old man and his
dogs had been walking since March 9, passing through main highways
and getting occasional rest stops.
There was no rain but
Max’s journey was not without tragedy. While walking along the
rough roads of Baluyan, four of Max’s 10 dogs fell to their deaths
off a cliff. “It was dark, I could not save them.”
He said he tried
looking for Kaloy, Agaton, Barok and Ondoy in the morning, but they
were nowhere to be found, possibly swept by the rapids of the river
below.
What endears strangers
to an old man like Max is his utter lack of any need for pity.
Walking along the road from General Santos, Max’s pushcart only
bore the words “Journey Max,” his full name, and his prayer of a
route painted in huge letters.
Asked what he did for a
living, it was clear that what he has done since 2011 was not for
himself but for the dogs he considers family. Max rummaged through
trash bins and sells recyclable items to buy two kilograms of rice or
corn grain.
Such is his routine:
look for cans or pieces of metal, sell these at a junk shop, buy
rice, and cooks it for the 10 dogs. “I usually just leave just a
handful for myself,” Max said, gesturing with his fingers.
“Everything is OK with salt.”
On better days, Max
says the dogs would feast on leftover barbecue bones from the patrons
near the Bulaong Terminal in General Santos, where he also stayed.
Even with the way the
old man walked with his dogs, one could easily see the loyalty he has
earned. At night, his dogs would surround him and in his absence let
out cries of longing.
As MindaNews did the
interview, each dog’s personality became readily apparent.
Bolantoy, for example, acts as the alpha male. Max treats the
two-year old male as his right hand. Marimar acts as second in
command, even as she is the mother of all of Max’s dogs. Pablo, a
white pup, is the youngest at four months old. Yolanda, Bulantok, and
Dionesia all take turns playing around and act as scouts.
Max, obviously, is
their pack leader, with the dogs readily at his beck and call.
Bontilao said the dogs
were so obedient that they sat still at Max’s bark when they needed
to meet Mayor Rellon at City Hall. “He just told them ‘puyo!’,
and they did just that, stay still.”
Perhaps to the surprise
of others, each of Tatay Max’s dogs are not only obedient, they are
also vaccinated, with Tatay Max having scheduled each dog at the city
veterinarian.
Max shifted from nice
and gentle to those interviewing him one moment, to being firm and
aggressive the next, which explains the way he kept the dogs in
check.
Tatay Max said he
decided to come home to Ormoc because he did not want to die in a
place where he had no relatives.
However, Max’s fate
in Ormoc may not be as certain. He said his relatives there might no
longer know him, as he left the place around 50 years ago.
Since then, he has
traveled from Manila to Palawan, Ozamiz City to Cagayan de Oro City,
making a living by selling toys and ball pens wherever he was.
It was in 2008 when he
moved to General Santos, where he would stay up until March this
year.
He has had at least
four generations of dogs since 2011, but this was the first time he
became famous. In General Santos, Tatay Max is popular with locals
who are amused with the way the dogs follow him around.
He has since
capitalized on this, with each dog having a colorful bandana wrapped
around their necks. “I did this for fun,” he said. “I noticed
that people liked my dogs.”
While waiting for the
trip to Ormoc, Tatay Max confided he didn’t know what awaits him
there. He said his relatives there might not know him given his long
absence.
“Another family has
already bought our land there,” he said. “I hope I can convince
them to let me stay where my family used to live.” (MindaNews)
One of the ballrooms here is being prepped for a LEGO-themed bday party. Squeeeee
The pink sands of Sta. Cruz Island, Zamboanga City, from another angle.
Because balloons. ^_^
When it rains…
Discuss.
Because Thursday. #throwbackthursday
Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte meets with residents and students at the Wireless Cemetery, where his mother, Nanay Soling, lies. It is her second death anniversary.
“quoyle - a coil of rope only one layer thick… so that it may be walked on.” -Proulx, quoting The Ashley Book of Knots. #theshippingnews #literature #books