Dreaming of second chances

Netnet Camomot .

YOU’RE definitely fat once your nightmares, er, dreams have people telling you you’re fat.

I had one such dream on Wednesday night—or Thursday dawn—and I woke up feeling like, Of course, I’m fat; who says I’m not. Defensive! Haha!

Another hint you’re fat is when a friend you’ve not seen for a long time is now giving you unsolicited advice on how to lose weight. Her secret: low-carb. But the advice is much appreciated, thank you, because I need all the diet tips that well-meaning friends can give.

It’s fiesta time in Cagayan de Oro where a piggy’s cry may not be oink but a squeal on Aug. 28, and even on Aug. 27 for the food that has to be prepared on the eve of the fiesta. Huhu. Kaluoy tawon sa piggy.

Waking up to the sound of a crying piggy can be traumatic. But once the lechon is on the buffet table five hours later, most probably you’ll forget about the trauma.

Aside from squealing pigs, buntings are also another sign that the fiesta is here. Add buntings to the traffic, and you would knit your eyebrows forevermore.

Better chill inside a movie house then. For the hopeless romantic, there’s “Just a Stranger.” For the action fan, there’s “Angel Has Fallen.” And for the piggy collector, “The Angry Birds Movie 2” has green pigs. Oink!

“Stranger’s” most memorable scenes are not the steamy ones—ooh la la—but that of the priest (Josef Elizalde) to whom Mae (Anne Curtis) confesses her sins, because he’s funny. In the midst of the Senate hearings on whatever the senators are trying to solve now, laughter is still the best medicine.

At the beginning of confession, the priest would ask, When was your last confession? And the 34-year-old Mae replied, “Grade 6.” Relate na relate ba ang mga lapsed Catholics?

Curtis and her younger—nine years in real life, 15 years in the movie—leading man, Marco Gumabao, have their moments in the movie, which may shock you as they morph from pensive to emotional in less than a second, making them new versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Pinoy tends to forgive a Pinoy movie’s lapses since he’s aware of its limited budget and its actors’ lack of training in the acting department. He chooses to enjoy and watch that movie instead of criticizing it.

A Hollywood movie, on the other hand, has no more excuses to fail because of its gazillion-dollar budget and actors who could be drama school graduates.

It’s like lechon. A lechon from Cebu is expected to be the yummiest of them all. A non-yummy lechon will then inspire a lechon lover to conclude it’s not made in Cebu, and won’t be surprised if his suspicion is proven to be true. And, yes, that’s branding.

Thus, the Pinoy has not expected former Calauan, Laguna Mayor Antonio Sanchez to morph into a saint while in prison, since his “brand” is that of a bad guy who should be punished for his sins.

And then, there’s Senator Bato dela Rosa who swings from saying Sanchez “deserves a second chance” to “dapat binitay na siya noon.” Here’s his explanation on that, as quoted by Rappler: “By operation of [the] law, he deserves a second chance. Hindi ko sinasabi na dapat talaga. Ang sa akin nga ganun ka-heinous na krimen na ginawa niya. Dapat binitay na yan siya noon, kung may death penalty noon. Pero wala tayo magawa.”

Dela Rosa, who supports the reimposition of the death penalty, said that when he was Bureau of Corrections chief, he observed this of Sanchez: “May hawak na bibliya palagi, nakapalda, naka-lipstick. Bagay pa ba sayo na magsiga-siga?… Hindi naman ibig sabihin na ‘yun ang basis. Pwede na rin na masabi mo na mabait na ito naka-palda na.”

Uh. Is that branding, too? I wonder how the LGBTQI community would react to that.

Sanchez has a chance to be free, thanks to good conduct. That is, if he has been good while in prison.

It’s understandable for the Pinoy to wonder if the word “good” has a new definition now, since what Sanchez did to Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez is definitely the exact opposite of good.

But Sanchez can only dream to be free, as freedom seems to be the last thing that the Pinoy is willing to give him.