Promise, ha?

Netnet Camomot

THE Marawi siege will end on Oct. 15, 2017. That’s according to the military. We have to put the year, otherwise…

But we’re so tempted to say, Promise, ha?

The military does seem to be a fan of the saying, “Promises are made to be broken.” There have been other deadlines set before, on when the siege would end, only to be extended at the last minute.

It’s like setting a date for the start of a diet. You’d say, Today. And then, there you are, feasting on lechon for lunch. So, you reschedule: Tomorrow. And then, there you are the next day, feasting on lechon kawali for dinner.

Breakfast is the most crucial of all since breakfast food is the yummiest ever, with choices ranging from bacon to beef tapa. How can one resist that? How to start the day with oatmeal? You wake up, and you now have to make major changes while the sun is still rising: bacon or sardines, beef tapa or banana, rice or oatmeal. It’s so early in the morning, and you’re running around the house already anticipating and dreading the traffic to the office. Upon realizing there’s no time to prepare breakfast, you rush to the office with an empty tummy, which is now urging you to have brunch at the cafeteria which offers humba, chicken pork adobo, and pork chop.

Fish seldom looks good at the cafeteria. Especially if they’re displayed whole, with eyes. Or bunched with other fish parts to make a tray of inun-unan and tinolang isda, so pale and blah. You’re already imagining how boring brunch will be if it’s spent with them.

But if you have an R problem, like R-thritis, you have no choice but to go for the blah. The knees and joints will always complain if their nutrition is coming from red meat.

The body and the way it reacts to excess weight and bad food will always let you know what’s good or bad for your health. It reacts immediately. Or at least overnight, with aches and pains felt on your way to the bathroom the morning after, plus the one-pound gain that’s computed by deducting the previous day’s weight from the huge numbers that are now blinking via the digital weighing scale, with the figures after the decimal point also as important as the ones before that point of no return.

Diets and body weight may not be one’s focus anymore amidst a siege, but good health does help people survive in the most crucial and challenging moments. That’s why the need for Marawi’s displaced residents to have good nutrition and to have some R&R despite their present circumstances.

And that must be the reason for the military’s promises on when the siege would end. To provide something to hope for. Because an endless siege with air strikes that have turned the main battle area to rubble, does not encourage one to hope.

I’m now looking at two photos of a friend’s ancestral house before the siege. Located right in the middle of that main battle area, try to imagine its present condition. Marawi’s city government officials do grant interviews and face the media, but I still have to hear them talk about how the siege has affected them personally.

A positive side to the siege is the hardest thing to discover but here’s one that we can’t ignore—it has helped us understand our Muslim friends, and has made us see that the Maute group and other extremists are merely a misguided fraction of the Muslim community. Christians and Catholics have their own share of racists and bigots, and we now have to ask if religion is necessary in the world’s quest for peace.

There’s this cartoon of an old lady praying her novenas while kneeling in front of the altar inside her house. She then hears noise from people outside and this prompts her to yell, P*tang ina nyo! Ang ingay-ingay nyo! Tumahimik kayo!

Those are not the exact words, but I may have to search through my collection of comic strips to get the exact quote. Anyway, in that strip, the old lady then resumes praying after yelling a litany of curses.

Cursing does not make a person bad. It’s simply an expression of one’s thoughts. After almost two years of listening to President Rody Duterte, PI definitely does not mean Philippine Islands anymore.

If you’ve lived long enough in this world, you may now have a list of people whom you consider as bad and to be absolutely avoided. Most of those in that list won’t even dare say, P*tang ina. So prim and proper, can’t break glass, always follow the rules, pray novenas daily. They’ve covered themselves with the perfect gift wrapper, complete with ribbons and gift tags, and then you open the gift, only to find sh*t inside all those beautiful layers of pretense.

The Marawi siege has taught us that pretense can be the worst preparation for anything. If you’re always in denial, always pretending that everything is A-OK, reality will hit you the hardest.

The same goes for excess body weight. It’s time to adopt a healthy diet. Don’t make promises. Just do it.