Netnet Camomot
LESSON learned for the State of the Nation Address (Sona) organizers: Don't warn peeps it will be “makabagbag damdamin.” I waited for my tears to flow down my face, but that didn't happen. Instead, I laughed. Not like a hyena. But still, I laughed. The new prez is funny, he has a sense of humor.
The ad libs took the thunder away from the main speech which could have been makabagbag damdamin had it been delivered as is. But this is one president whose twin is spontaneity.
At least the speech had no curses this time. It did have lots of the president's nose, hands, and his barong’s buttons as seen through the video angles of award-winning indie film director Brillante Mendoza, prompting at least one Facebook fan to say it’s the State of the Nose Address.
This is the new president’s honeymoon stage, where a dead body’s cause of death is written on a cardboard. The cause does not exactly tell how the killing went, but simply blames the death on drugs.
With the prez saying through his Sona, “He who is the cause of the cause, is the cause of them all,” words on a cardboard are probably considered as sufficient explanation of why this particular life has to end.
Doing drugs, whether through selling or using, is now considered as suicide, and surrendering is no guarantee the pusher or user will be free from harm. As I wrote before, the list of surrenderers has confirmed what authorities have suspected all along.
These are dangerous times not only for drugelated cases--with Tokhang morphing to Toktokbangbang--but also for criminals of all kinds.
But they’re used to dangerous times. The only difference is, the drug user is praning, a nervous wreck bursting with paranoia, which may contribute to his earlier demise as he hops from one cave to another in the hope of finding safety and security. That’s why a drug lord or pusher should not use drugs, so he can always stay sane and sober while managing his lucrative business.
Pinoys who have drug-using and -pushing friends are probably wondering now if these friends are among the surrenderers.
By the way, the word “surrenderee” always gets this ano-ba-talaga-kuya question mark. Should it be surrenderer? Or surrenderor? Or surrenderist? Whatever the right term is, it now refers to a drug pusher or user who, well, surrenders to the authorities, hoping this act will save him from prison, or worse.
He has to be vigilant once he has surrendered--no more pushing or using drugs. He has to find another source of income or another habit. Because once he’s caught, and with his name already in the list of surrenderers, he will have no more excuse from being “the cause of the cause, is the cause of them all.”
But the new prez said in his Sona, “All of us want peace, not peace of the dead of course, but the peace of the living.” If this line is not enough to assure the drug lord, drug pusher or drug user of a long life, then he's better off drugs, now na.
The first Sona of a new prez is the introduction to his kind of governance. This is one prez who hit the ground running with real and not merely imagined appetizers in the form of the most aggressive war on drugs, and his Sona simply confirmed this war will go on and on like the Energizer Bunny when he said, “Courage knows no limits, cowardice does.”
This Sona had many firsts.
For the first time, rallyists were allowed to rally near the Batasan with nothing to stop them: no barbed wires, barricades, concrete barriers, container vans, water cannons, etc. And the new prez invited them to talk with him after the Sona when the remaining rallyists were about to go home. Yup, change is definitely here.
For the first time, the new prez didn’t use invectives in his speech. We’re so used to his curses, for him to be able to keep them from bursting off his mouth was a miracle.
For the first time, we were watching a president's nostrils and fingernails while he was delivering the Sona. Those were not his best angles, but we could see they’re clean, thanks to his assurance, “This will be a clean government.”
Three of the top posts in the government are now filled up by Mindanaoans: President Rody Duterte, Senate President Koko Pimentel, and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
With Miss Universe Pia Wurtzbach from Cagayan de Oro and the Pambansang Kamao Sen. Manny Pacquiao from Sarangani and General Santos, it’s now the turn of the Mindanaoan to shine. And that’s not makabagbag damdamin at all.
