In terms of rate of stabbing incidents, the city of Tacloban is perhaps the most violent place in the Philippines. Of course, local police statistics may have downplayed or glossed over this reality. After all, stabbing cases largely involve peasant types and ordinary citizens, whose names do not ring a bell when heard over the radio. Yet, one comparative fact stands out: In Cebu City, which has a population of more than 600,000, a stabbing case is seven o’clock news. While here in Tacloban, with a population of about 140,000, a stabbing case is mere police beat report, and may just be one among several such incidents over the past 24 hours.

The Tacloban City Police Department has tried several schemes to curb the stabbing incidents in the city. Foremost among these is its random "Operation Bakal" patrols, which seemed to have already yielded a large arsenal of knives. Yet, knife-tuckers continue to be caught, and "Operation Bakal" appeared to have only succeeded in criminalizing a practice primarily intended for self-preservation.

The irony is that many people who tuck a knife in their persons when they roam around Tacloban (especially at night) would otherwise leave their knives at home when they roam around areas outside Tacloban such as Palo and Tanauan. Why prepare for a combative self-defense in Tacloban, and then trust one’s running speed for flight in areas outside the city?

I got some interesting but tentative answers to the above confusion, while doing research on Leyte-Samar history and culture during the first 100 years of Spanish contact and the American occupation early this century.

I was able to infer that Kanhuraw (i.e., "Huraw’s domain", the center of Tacloban) was the Leyte extension of the powerful "kingdom" of Kandaya - based in Basey, Samar. Huraw was the nephew of Daya, according to the Legazpi chronicles. And the folklore that Tacloban was a barrio of Basey is still memorialized by the Balyuan (Exchange) Ritual, which is a component of the Tacloban Fiesta celebration.

It is probable that, in the folk mind, Kanhuraw was an enemy territory with a powerful base in Basey. The tension between Samar-based Kandaya and the Leyte-based "kingdom" seemed indicated by the fact that Kanhuraw, the domain of Daya’s nephew, was bounded by southern villages with adversarial names: Kankabatoc (of the Enemy), Candahug (of the Mischievous), and Kampetic (of the Sly). The inhabitants of these three villages were perhaps ethnic enemies of the inhabitants of Kanhuraw.

When Kanhuraw grew to become Tacloban, the belief probably remained in the folk mind that this was still enemy territory. To venture into this territory, a non-Taclobanon would prepare for a possible ambush or attack by real or imagined enemies. And the best-concealed instrument for self-defense was a knife, the handy variant of the sundang (bolo), the ubiquitous farming tool and ethnic weapon of war.

The perception that Tacloban was indeed enemy territory by inhabitants elsewhere in Leyte found a new dimension during the American occupation early this century. Tacloban was the base of the US Army fighting a war of conquest against the natives in Leyte and Samar. This was also the base of the American-officered Insular Constabulary (the original Philippine Constabulary), whose brutal combat experiments in Biliran Island are understandably missing in official histories of that organization.

With the establishment of civil government in Leyte in April 1901, a year before the Philippine-American War officially ended, Taclobanons styled themselves as Americanistas who associated with the foreigners and also looked down on the peasant-types as insurrectos (insurgents). Unfortunately, this paradoxical sense of superiority is self-reinforcing. Taclobanons sing strains of "God Bless America" every time they sing the "Hymn to the Santo Niño of Tacloban," composed by Justice Norberto Romualdez, Sr.

My tentative conclusion is that Tacloban continues to be perceived by the non-Taclobanon folk mind as crawling with stalking enemies, as in the Kandaya and American days. I therefore suggest that it is this level of perception that the problem of knife-tucking in the city must be addressed.

The enforcement of "Operation Bakal" by the police authorities will not solve the problem. It will only enhance the subconscious folk perception that our men in uniform are no different from the fierce, baysay (i.e., trained or refined) warriors of Kandaya, and from the rapine Filipino recruits to the American-officered Insulares (Constabulary), who largely protected the elite and the privileged citizens from freedom-fighting peasant-types.

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