ILOILO CITY - A copycat of the notorious Latino-American crime gang Mara Salvatruch or MS-13 exists in Iloilo City. Law enforcers unearthed the existence of True Brown Style (TBS-13) when its alleged leader Reynaldo ''Alvin'' Veracruz Dizon was arrested in an anti-narcotics operation last week. ''This is an emerging gang here,'' said Paul Ledesma, Regional Director of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA-6). TBS-13 is tagged as a teen gang involved in a series of robbery and murder incidents victimizing a number of taxi drivers here since August.
Ledesma said the TBS-13 is a Manila-based gang patterned after the notorious international criminal gang MS-13 founded in Los Angeles, California, USA. The 22-year-old Dizon said TBS-13 may have existed in Iloilo City as early as 2005, but denied knowing the gang's full background until joining the gang last year and later on becoming its leader. Dizon claims that the gang members are high school and college students as well as out-of-school youth.
Dizon said membership in TBS-13 requires physical torture. Males participate in an initiation rite known as ''jump-in'' where senior members take turns in punching the right and left sides of an initiate's waist. Females have both sides of their face slapped. To become a full-pledge gang member, a member's forefinger and middle finger's knuckles are burned by cigarettes.
