Lyrics

Netnet Camomot

THERE are Pinoys who are not yet convinced on the commitment of the new president on his war against drugs. Their query: Why is this particular drug lord given a chance to prove himself innocent while drug pushers and users are not given the same chance before they’re banished from these 7,100 or so islands?

The new prez himself said there are now about three million Pinoys hooked on shabu. Oh my. Unless I heard him wrong–it could be 300 thousand, or 30,000. But there have been 65,000 “surrenderers” so far, and he said it’s a small fraction of the number of drug users in the country.

There’s this meme posted on Facebook. It has the photo of Philippine National Police Chief Bato dela Rosa, and this caption: “Noon: Takot lumabas ng gabi ang mga tao. Ngayon: Mga adik na ang takot lumabas.”

Well, this is the time for Pinoys involved in drugs to hibernate, not to be seen in public in the next six years. They should read books, write their memoirs, or sing a la Snow Patrol and not a la this particular bank robber who has been having concerts while inside the Bilibid–yup, bilib it or not.

But the one singing “Chasing Cars” should probably be a carnapper so he can relate?

“We’ll do it all/Everything/On our own/We don’t need/Anything/Or anyone/If I lay here/If I just lay here/Would you lie with me/And just forget the world?”

And that’s another reason a drug user may use as an excuse for his hard habit to break: to “forget the world.”

I wrote about this before and here I am again: Each person has his coping mechanism. Drugs. Booze. Food. Shopping. Gambling.

Yup, easy to say, Why can’t you stare at the sunset or something?

There are people whose coping mechanism is indeed staring at the sunset, or waking up early to catch the sunrise, communing with nature, watching paint dry.

Me? I collect funny comic strips–cut them out of a newspaper and put them inside a Krispy Kreme rectangular tin can. Newspaper clippings, too, which I shove into long brown envelopes–these will undergo an audit soon, though, gotta throw away those I can’t relate with anymore.

I listen to Pearl Jam. But on Monday while working, it was Snow Patrol, for the memories.

I stare at trees. All that greenery. Wow.

I collect piggies and miniatures.

I eat, read, write.

There are so many ways of coping in this oh so cruel world. And this could be the problem: we look at the world as cruel instead of wonderful. Be like Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno who loves to sing, “What a Wonderful World”: “I see trees of green, red roses too/I see them bloom for me and you/And I think to myself what a wonderful world.”

Which makes me stare at the trees again. Sigh.

But the song that drugelated Pinoys can relate with must be Snow Patrol’s “Run”: “Louder louder/And we’ll run for our lives/I can hardly speak I understand/Why you can’t raise your voice to say.”

My personal favorite, though, is “The Nearness of You.” I heard Mimi Ermino sing that eons ago at my party for passing a board exam. I asked her about the song’s title, and I’ve been hooked since then.

“It’s not the pale moon that excites me/That thrills and delights me, oh no/It’s just the nearness of you.”

Sigh.

And, yes, there’s one more coping mechanism: staring at the moon. Some people even spend many hours to take closeup photos of the moon. No, they don’t fly to the moon for that. Hehe. Have you heard of telephoto lenses?

Oh, there’s a song for that, too: “If a picture paints a thousand words/Then why can’t I paint you?/The words will never show the you I’ve come to know.”

Painting–one more thing you can do while hibernating.

Now, here’s the big question mark: With all these coping mechanisms to choose from, why do drugs?