Monday afternoon, August 18 Renzo and 3 of his classmates
were going to practice at home.  Their meeting place was
Trinoma Mall at 1pm .  Renzo was accompanied by his elder
brother till the time that Renzo was with his classmates.
Renzo already with 2 classmates, Ram and Aaron waited for
Richard 3rd classmate at Olympic Village 4th floor.  While
waiting they went thru soccer balls and boxing gloves.  Soon
after they received a text message from 3rd classmate
Richard who was now waiting for them at Seattle ‘s Best,
1st floor.  They proceeding to meet Richard and as soon as
they were complete they headed for our home but then a man
approached them and identified himself as an employee of
Olympic Village and even flashed an ID to the boys.  The man
informed them that they damaged an item and that they should
follow him back to the store.  The man narrated every move
the boys made and true enough one of them accidentally
dropped a soccer ball.  Before leaving Seattle ‘s Best,
Richard the last classmate to arrive was told to stay behind
and wait for their return.

The man then brought the 3 boys to the 4th floor Cinema
Area. Ram and Aaron were told to give Renzo all their
belongings (3 cell phones including Renzo’s, an IPOD, a
PSP and 2 wallets) and were ordered by the man to go to the
restroom to wash their hands before the investigation.  The
boys followed as ordered.  When they returned Renzo and the
man was no longer there.  Fearing for Renzo’s safety and
their other friend they headed back to Seattle ‘s Best.
Richard was still there but Renzo was no where to be found.
All three went back to Olympic Village and informed them of
the man who introduced himself as an employee and that Renzo
was missing.  They were brought to the Trinoma Security
Office also at the 4th floor and reported the incident.

2:45pm at home, the parent received a phone call that every parent
feared, "M’am, this is Ram, Renzo’s classmate, M’am
si Renzo po is missing. . . .His mom  couldn’t believe what she
was hearing she asked them where they were, what happened and
who was this man they were talking about.  Renzo’s mom quickly headed
to Trinoma to meet with them.  She was scared, thoughts ran
through her mind, all the what ifs and all she could think of
was Renzo’s safety.  She prayed and called on her dad and her
mother-in-law.  When she arrived at
the Security office, her prayers were answered, there was
Renzo, scared, pale, shaken-up and in-tears but most
importantly safe and unharmed.

Having been convinced that they indeed damaged an item at
Olympic Village, Renzo was told by this man that he is
bringing him to the main office of Olympic Village.  So they
both walked all the way to West Avenue until they reached
the building beside Caltex.   The man told Renzo to stay
outside the building and wait for his return.  An hour had
passed no sign of this man, Renzo approached the building
security guard and asked if he had seen the man he was with
enter their building and the guard said that no one entered
their building at that time.  Upon realizing what had just
happened, Renzo hurriedly returned to Trinoma scared of
thinking that the man might have returned for his friends
and that something might have happened to them.

Little did Renzo know that from the time the Trinoma
Security office was informed of the incident Renzo was
already being paged constantly.  The in-house detective of
Trinoma decided to wait for Renzo at Seattle ‘s Best
thinking that he would return there.  True enough Renzo did
return and upon seeing this scared boy the detective
approached Renzo introduced himself and brought him safely
to the Security Office.

Renzo and his classmate Ram was able to identify the man
who was with them through the Security Camera of Olympic
Village.  This man was following them from the time they
entered Olympic Village up to the time they went to Seattle
‘s Best.  He watched every move they made and made sure
that the boys had no accompanying adults with them.

As soon as Olympic Village releases the picture of this man
to us I will post it and make known to everyone the identity
of this man who momentarily created fear in their lives.

She was disappointed that after all the
serious talks she has had with her son on not talking to
stranger’s still he did not obey.  As a parent no matter
how much you want to protect your children, no matter how
tight we pull the strings on them, our children will still
continue to experience pain and still be careless at times.

The good news though was that her son, their sons, were spared.

We will have
this constant fear over their personal safety; we can’t be
everywhere, we can’t see everything, we can’t know
everything.

To those who has teenage
children daring to explore on their own.  Never mind if they
get angry for not being allowed to be on their own but at
least you are sparing them from this trauma.  Do
not allow your children to bring gadgets outside of their
home as these serve as baits for hold-up.