By Pedro Reyes
                                                            1997
 

     When three robbers boarded the jeepney, they did not expect any problem. It was midnight, the heat was stifling and most of the passengers were
     half-asleep. One robber sat with the driver in front, while the other two seated themselves at the rear entrance. When an eighty-year old man boarded
     the jeepney carrying a two-foot aluminum rod, they barely glanced at him. As the jeepney entered a dimly lit park, the robbers pulled out their knives
     and ordered the passengers to hand over their wallets and jewelry. Instead of complying, the old man swung the aluminum rod, sending the teeth of one
     robber flying out of the window and ripping the stomach of the other. The remaining robber leaped out of the jeepney and fled. The criminals had made
     one mistake of trying to rob a jeepney in which the most revered masters of arnis was riding. Although Gran Maestro Antonio Ilustrisimo was
     eighty-five at the time of this incident, he was still deadly.