WOW!!! WTH??? seems like your a nice person, but my God!! I can only suggest small claims court and recover at least 1/2 of it being its a max of 5,000..Hopefully he wil admit to it or its your word against his....Now, I'm the same way, always helped others when I had it etc...But if I ever got burned like this, I would do as I suggested..If I lost? the dude is gonna get a beaten period! and it would not stop until payments started coming in...Take anything for now as well..Go over there and talk with him, he's back now yes? Get something signed to a tune of 200 bucks a Month or whatever he can swing etc...Or, can he take out a loan to repay you? How was he gonna pay you back? Again, talk with him and if nothing else works, let the beating begin!! You don't need to do it either.....
Ant
PS...It also may be worth it to pay a cop to harress him and threaten him with jail...May work, but just another idea..200 pesos or so, get a cop to knock on his door..