School Gangs and Graffiti

I am trying to remember what it was like to be in grade VI. I could remember playing traditional games like sipa, (though I was never good at it) syato, teks, piko, etc.

There's the teasing and fist fights which back then were considered part of growing up; today this is called school bullying and school violence. But I remember it was not that bad (or violent) because the fights were limited to slapping and fist fights and no gangs involved. Since I studied in a small school where where most everybody knew each other, these childhood fights were almost always settled amicably.

I ask my pupils to take pictures because as of yesterday I have not seen them, or maybe I'am not aware of them.

I guess I could never really recall what school was like in those days. It's been said that our memory sanitizes our experiences filtering the bad memories out and leaving out, even spicing them up to become the memory of the experience we want it to be. That is why things are always better in the old days.

Maybe its because I did have my share of teasing and punching, maybe I am both, bully and bullied. Nah, my former classmates describes their memory of me as a-student-who-lives-in-his -own -world.

Anyway. I was trying to recall these things because of what happened this morning. Teachers discovered graffiti on school walls.

 "Gucci Babes" I have no idea what these words were. I didn't even know these words were written on school walls until co-teachers discovered them and interviewed pupils who they suspected committed or have knowledge with this act vandalism (teachers develop sixth sense when it comes to these things). Three pupils was from my advisory class.  It was learned that Gucci Babes was a gang.

Grade six and they already have gangs. When I was in grade six I was still peeing in my sleep!

Gucci Babes, according to some of my pupils, is a gang with a membership of more than a hundred. They are quiet organized. I don't know if they have a senior or a godfather or a founder who is usually an adult, but they have leadership, hierarchy of sort. They have initiation rites, they even have membership dues listed on a ledger.

They are starting to have an influence among the pupils in the school. They are feared for they threaten pupils who would tell teachers about them, a code of silence, an omerta. This is evident when teachers asked who wrote these graffiti, they were hesitant to tell out of fear. There were even talks of alcohol, cigarettes and sex. These are hear-says  which I have no way of verifying but true or not, this is disturbing.

And the worse thing is, according to my spies, Gucci Babes has a rival gang: Berde Dos. 

And there's this one: XCON. 

I have encountered  something like this a few years ago. I saw a lot of  TBS  initials on notebooks, armchairs, etc. I found out that TBS is a gang but the pupils were not really member of TBS since TBS is a notorious Filipino gang in the US.. It was more of an identification than a membership.

This kind of things is a passing fad that dies  naturally, but Gucci Babes with that number of membership, initiation rights, organization. I hope so.

I am researching on what Gucci Babes mean, usually gangs are named after a movement, song, people, movie, etc. More interviews, I guess.