At about 1:30 in the morning, Cuan stepped outside his home on Tandang Sora in Quezon City to retrieve some magazines from his Honda CRV. He never really went out at night, so it was not unusual for him to quietly read at home. On this occasion, though, the still of night was going to be shattered by a crime that almost turned violent, as an unfamiliar Toyota sedan drove by, slowed down, and came to a stop next to his house.
"When I closed the car, a guy got out of the Toyota and pointed a gun at me, asking for the keys," Cuan told The Star. "I wasn’t sure of the guy was just tripping and I wanted to see if it was a real gun. So when he reached for the keys, I pulled my hand back."
Cuan unexpectedly got an extreme close-up of the barrel of the 45-calibre pistol, when the diminutive suspect shoved the gun hard between his eyes. He surrendered the keys. A second gangster emerged from the Toyota and aimed at Cuan as his partner drove off with Cuan’s car, but not before taking his bag with cell phones, ATM cards and his credit card in it.
Cuan rushed into his house and woke up his parents, who promptly notified the authorities.
"I think they were waiting for my younger brother," concludes Cuan, a second-round draft pick of the Realtors in 2004. "He normally comes home around this time. My Mom said that she keeps waking up early in the morning when the dogs bark, because there’s a car that keeps driving around the neighborhood."
True enough, an hour after the incident, Cuan’s brother arrived from a late-night get-together to a house full of shocked family members. Ironically, Mac, whose other younger brother plays for University of Santo Tomas, is the last person to choose to go out late at night. A homebody who learned to cook by watching cooking shows on cable, Cuan prefers to stay home and experiment in the kitchen, read or watch TV.
"We never even thought that anything like this would happen to us," Cuan recalled. "And I don’t really go out. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In the middle of it all, the competitor in Mac wanted to challenge the perpetrators, since he had overcome many odds in his basketball career. He only made it to the De La Salle Green Archers basketball team after repeatedly trying out, even when other players were putting him down. That night, however, he decided discretion was the better part of survival.
"I wanted to fight back, because the guy was smaller than me," said the 5’9" pro. "But I thought that the third guy in the car might also have a gun. So even if I was able to overpower the first guy, it would still be two against one, so it was useless."
Now, when he closes his eyes to go to sleep, Mac still sees the barrel of the 45-calibre pistol, pointed squarely between his eyes.
A more famous player who also sports green and white on the basketball court was also involved in an early-morning encounter that almost cost him his life. Boston Celtics superstar Paul Pierce (who visited Manila last year) was stabbed to within an inch of his life in a Boston night club more than two years ago, when he approached a young lady who was related to a member of a gang whose territory he had unknowingly invaded. Pierce was stabbed in the face, chest, neck and abdomen, and nearly died from loss of blood and other injuries when the gang kicked him as he lay bleeding on the club’s dancefloor. To this, the former Welcoat Paintmaster has some sound advice.
"Just don’t go out, especially late at night."
Nowadays, Cuan has mixed feelings. His car is either being used for other crimes, or has probably been through a chop shop and has been sold off part by part. But he escaped unhurt.
"My friends say I was unlucky, because I lost my car," Cuan reveals. "But I think, in a way, I was also lucky. I could have died that night. This is my second life."
In that regard, he is very fortunate, indeed.