⌛ A victim of crime

Just as how we talk about rising criminalities in Dumaguete but how dreadful and awful it is to be a victim of crime itself on your first day in Dumaguete.This indeed happened to us .Perhaps due to over excitement, bit of stupidity,memory loss or only under estimating the degree of crime around. Just as we finished our shopping in the hypermart we head down to Chin Loong past 8:30 pm, parked the car just beside the restaurant .My parents were there too with us.It's a busy well lit street beside Chin Loong .Soon we finished the nice meal, we head back to our car ,only to find out the tiny window on the right side was broken and to realize some valuable items were gone .It got on me like a shock ,unbelievable,on our first day ,after our first meal in duma ! We called in the police and it took about nearly three quarters of an hour before we saw them.We qued up more than an hour in the police station because there was one well ahead of us interviewed of a diff crime incident. After everything reported , written up and photographed it all finished past midnight and we still have to drive up north.We reach the house nearly 2 am.It was very exhausting depressing first day for us.I could never think of such daring attempt of theives to break in such busy street beside the restaurant.If you happen to set where the non aircon section is,you can view right the car beside it.But we were in the aircon section,and would not be aware of any noises outside.Chin Loong has security guards ,but they don't look and check out the vicinity ,one i am aware of only stayed inside in aircon section ,opening doors to customers ,a nice easy job for a security guard then.It gets us bit paranoid somehow where we park the car when around duma,only one incident and it gets you . But then on the rest of the holiday went on well , visit places ,occidental side of negros ,part of cebu ; we had nice weather than expected , but sadly time went flying by so quickly we had to head back with so many things we regret we haven't done as on list ,saving them for next time.

 

I'm sorry this unfortunate event occurred to you and your family and thank you for sharing the information.
Perhaps this will help the rest of us to be diligent.

 

Pickled_newt,
I'm sorry to hear about your "welcome to Duma" episode. You parked your locked car on a well lit busy/open area area .... what else could have you done to prevent the incident? Any suggestions from DI members?

 

Keep valuables or anything that may appear attractive to a thief out of sight.

 

sorry to hear of you bad experience

There’s really not much else you could have done to prevent the incident. Keeping things that may appear attractive to a thief will definitely make you less of a target, but sometimes these incidents are just made at random, or will happen regardless. When humans are a faced with struggling times, most will do anything to survive.
I agree with both above posts.

Not to say that it would have stopped the crime, but how about a car alarm.
How common are car alarms in the phils? I know if I were a thief, and I heard an alarm go off while trying to be sneaky, I would be scared out of my wits!!

I don't want to minimize your incident (so please don't take this wrong way),
but just remember that it always could have been worse. Hopefully no one was harmed and what was lost, stolen, or broken was hopefully material and can be replaced.

 

Sometimes crooks are just hanging out looking for what they think may be opportunities. It's pretty sad because most of us are just living our lives with no intent to harm anyone else and we don't think the way a criminal does. The best we can do is try to think ahead but no victim of crime should ever believe they are at fault.

 

What an awful thing to happen on the first day. Just got back from Dumaguete and I'm missing it dearly. We didn't even have time to swim at the beach. :( But I'm still thankful for every second of our 2-week vacation.

We were using my mom's Voyager (which doesn't have tinted windows) to go around the city. We made sure to not leave anything valuable in the van. Not even any stray pesos. My husband took his laptop and padlocked backpack with him everywhere we went rather than leaving it in the van even though it was such a drag to go through security in stores like Lee Plaza where they have to look into your stuff. We hid our purchases under the seats and even our jackets (Nike and Billabong) because we knew that it would attract unwanted attention. Most likely the ones who steal from vehicles are the parking attendants that are literally on every street.

 

here in holland or when we travel other countries, we never leave our valuable things in the car...the more in philippines more extra careful we did.

 

As I said before it was not by intention we leave the bag behind in the car .We have travelled to many places abroad and here around in UK and we normally charter a vehicle to get around and with the SOP never leave valuables ,but on this one off occasion it did happen ,a BIG mistake we did ,the devil followed, strikes where our flaw lies .But even if we took the bag with us,the car itself on that evening was full of shopping and boxes of them from the hypermart,those might have triggered interests for those desperate to steal, a break in is inevitable .The last thing we remember ,hubby forgot the black back pack under the seat,to realize it too late , it was gone .I reckon without that bag they run away with, perhaps will take any of those few boxes of shoppings. That was charge to experience and first ever of it from my own home town itself greeting us on the first night ,and being forgetful is no excuse.A warning to many ,never underestimate crime in dumaguete,it could happen in your doorstep or in front of you .

I know not many will be happier of this statement esp to those kababayans avid to promote dumaguete .Me too like to promote this city ,it is a home town ,but in fairness to new others to be aware of ,let's be honest.

 

its sad to know that its happened.. everywhere would it could be same sittuations... just we have to care more and aware that they dont have any chance to do it... and by let us knowing this its keep us aware to.. and we have to take care more...