Paul Matthew Tanglao may have posted bail, giving him temporary liberty.

But the 21-year-old former supermarket salesclerk who spent over a week in jail for stealing a can of corned beef worth P31.50 remains shackled by a more formidable force. And he sees only one way out of it.

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To those who were touched by his story and moved into offering him help, Tanglao has one request: Help him complete his education.

Inside the cramped cell of the Sta. Ana police station, a day before his mother bailed him out on Dec. 18, Tanglao expressed gratitude upon learning that people were eager to help him out upon learning of his plight.

He said he felt humbled and embarrassed at the same time. Being caught for stealing, according to him, was not something he was proud of. His only excuse was that he was extremely hungry at that time and he had no money to pay for the can of corned beef.

“I am really grateful,” Tanglao said. “But can I also make an appeal? If they really want to help me, can they send me back to school?” he told the Inquirer in a recent interview.

“I really want to resume my studies. I want to finish school. Maybe they can help me enroll in school, even for just one semester. I want to prove to myself that I am not a bad person; I was just hungry at that time,” he said.

Second chances

For Tanglao, going back to school means redemption, a second shot at life.

“We’re all humans. We make mistakes, but we all deserve a second chance, don’t we?” he asked.

Life, according to Tanglao, has not been kind to him although he has not been a model citizen either, he admitted. He said he took a lot of opportunities for granted.

“I got into a gang that’s why my relatives refuse to send me back to school. I worked as a janitor, I stayed with friends and other people and then I lost my money. I was more interested in going out with my friends,” he said.

His happy-go-lucky ways have also led to a misunderstanding with his family, his mother in particular, who refused to talk to the Inquirer because she did not want the publicity.

“No, please. His life would be further ruined,” was her reply.

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After dropping out of college as a freshman at a maritime school, Tanglao has worked for five different employers, the last being the grocery store which charged him with qualified theft.

He has also been fired five times. Twice, for going AWOL (absent without official leave), once for getting into a fight and, another time, for receiving tips.

Impossible dream

Now, with a criminal complaint filed against him in the Manila City Prosecutor’s Office, Tanglao said his dreams might never come true. Finding another job may be impossible, too.

The widespread coverage his story got, while generating public sympathy for his plight, may also work against his favor.

“Who would accept me now?” Tanglao said. “I felt like I’ve been shamed and embarrassed before the world. I’m not saying what I did was right. I know it’s wrong. All I’m saying is I was just really hungry [that day] and I didn’t have money,” he said.

On the upside, the intense media scrutiny has prompted some kindhearted people to help his mother raise the P2,000 needed for his bail.

Netizens called him the Filipino version of Jean Valjean, the fictional character in Hugo’s novel Les Miserables, who is haunted his whole life by his theft of a loaf of bread which he gave away.

In Tangalo’s case, however, even the Sta. Ana police sympathized with him and criticized the supermarket’s “heartless” decision to charge him.

A policeman familiar with his case told Inquirer: “Of course, stealing is not right. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even file [a case]. I’d just fire him. Look, the money spent on photocopying the documents needed to file the case in court is more expensive than the price of the corned beef.”

A policewoman recalled that on the afternoon of Dec. 10, when the supermarket’s head security brought Tanglao to the police station, they didn’t know what to do.

They knew stealing was wrong but for them, sending Tanglao to jail for being hungry was worse. However, they could only shake their heads and file the complaint.

Sympathetic cops

So when Tanglao’s story became viral and the media flocked to the police station for interviews, the police turned them away. The Inquirer, however, was allowed to interview Tanglao on the condition that no pictures of him would be taken.

For one policewoman, further shaming the boy will not be good for his future.

“What do they want? They want to take photos of him and announce to the world that the boy’s a thief? For what? I don’t want that for him. I don’t even want him in jail. God, he was just hungry. Was that so difficult to understand?” she told the Inquirer.

Now out of jail, Tanglao hopes for just one thing: Another chance to start afresh with the coming of the New Year.

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