Wonder Woman

Netnet Camomot

FROM the room with a view, “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.”

I wonder if Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno is still singing his favorite song now that the Ombudsman has ordered his dismissal. Oh, no! Not again!

Dismissal orders and graft charges against Moreno keep on going and going like the Energizer Bunny. Despite the Marawi siege, the martial law in Mindanao, and the need to protect CDO against invasion and rebellion, Moreno is now ordered to leave city hall ASAP. Bakit ba ganyan?

Meanwhile, Marawi City Mayor Majul Gandamra, the city council, and other city government officials returned to city hall on Thursday, and their photos inspire a deep sigh of relief, making us look forward to the day when Marawi will finally be peaceful and safe.

Marawi is kind of raw–it has no malls yet to distract its residents from things that matter like faith, family, and friendship. And it has many “trees of green” that can make you sing, “what a wonderful world,” if only gunfire and air strikes are not part of its equation.

Respect for another person’s views is important, as long as the owner of those views is not killing or destroying anyone. But to prevent conflict, better avoid talking about religion and politics, which are certified as non-ending stories.

Even the weather has ceased to be the safest topic when US President Donald Trump decided for the US to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

And please don’t talk about JaDine versus KathNiel.

To avoid conflict, refrain from insisting on who’s the best of ’em all, although, I may tend to insist that the best lechon can be found in CDO and Carcar, Cebu.

How about the safest place to live in, do you know where that is? Is it Shangri-La? No, not the hotel.

Shangri-La is the name of the place in the 1933 novel, “Lost Horizon.” It’s a paradise where harmony, love, peace, respect, and even an almost eternal youth are all possible.

Its 1973 movie version opens with, well, its theme song, “Lost Horizon” which lyrics can make you wish for a place “Far away from it all/Where the air you breathe is soft and clean/And children play in fields of green/And the sound of guns/Doesn’t pound in your ears.”

It’s a feel-good movie with songs composed by Burt Bacharach which we somehow memorized, thanks to instant replays of its vinyl record.

There’s “The World is a Circle”: “The world is a circle without a beginning/And nobody knows where it really ends/Everything depends on where you/Are in the circle that never begins/Nobody knows where the circle ends.”

“Living Together, Growing Together”: “Start with a man and you have one/Add on a woman and then you have two/Add on a child and what have you got?/You’ve got more than three/You’ve got what they call a family/Living together, growing together, just being together/That’s how it starts/Three loving hearts all/Pulling together, working together, just building together/That makes you strong/If things go wrong we’ll still get along somehow/Living and growing together.”

“Question Me an Answer”: “Question me an answer bright and clear/I will answer with a question clear and bright/Even though your answer may be wrong/my question will be right/Question me an answer/Answer with a question.”

Sigh.

On Saturday morning, at the ungodly hour of 1:26 am, helicopters were still flying overhead. CDO is not exactly Marawi’s next-door neighbor, but we can definitely feel the tension.

Raids were then being conducted here, there, and everywhere, and we had to verify if those were fake news. But once we saw men in fatigue uniforms, we knew–uh-oh, not fake news.

There’s this serious effort to keep us calm and to remain confident in the government’s ability in protecting the country from further harm.

The sound of a vehicle passing by late at night now makes us wonder, Uh, another raid in progress?

And to wonder this much may make a Wonder Woman out of us, but not the Gal Gadot kind. It’s more like, I wonder how invasion and rebellion are defined. There’s this video of a lady senator who uses the Constitution as her basis in explaining these two words, but the more she tries to explain them, the more we wonder.

Despite the senior-moment lapses, though, we should ensure we live in a world “where the air you breathe is soft and clean/And children play in fields of green.”

Now, I wonder if eating at 2:28 am is still considered as a midnight snack.

And I wonder if today is Independence Day. No, not the movie. The real holiday. And, oh, it is!

Independence from what? I wonder.