No more tulog

Netnet Camomot

EVERY Pinoy who constantly checks out his Facebook account has gotten tired of reminders on ilang tulog na lang.

Even the country’s incoming president does not need reminders anymore on ilang tulog na lang.

It’s worse for drug suspects who have chosen to surrender before their situation could get, well, worse–that is, before ilang tulog na lang morphs to no more tulog. The anticipation must be torturing them. Thus, they surrender. Let it be.

Because once it’s official, once it is The Day, aguy, unsaon na lang.

The day the outgoing Davao City mayor takes his oath as the country’s President. The day the rest of the country morphs to Davao City. The day when durian is not the only thing you think of once you hear these two words: Davao City.

There’s this feeling that you now immediately connect the letter D with Davao, Digong, and durian. Unless you’ve watched “Finding Dory” and D makes you think of Dory, Destiny, and Disney.

Destiny looks familiar to those who have been to Oslob, Cebu, and swam with the butanding there. A Cebu-based niece once went to Oslob and now describes the butanding as this huge constantly hungry fish with a wide mouth that’s always open to take in more food. I told her, Mura diay ug ako, the only difference is, I’m not a fish.

The niece’s description of the butanding should have stopped me from going to Oslob, but one early morning in February, there I was with friends, on our way to Oslob to face Destiny. Well, at that time, we had no idea that one of these whale sharks has a name, thanks to animators who make living under the sea not only colorful and funny, but also meaningful, with some lessons thrown in on trusting your gut instinct and what your heart is telling you.

Most of the time, it is that heart that tells you what you’ve been rejecting and denying all along. In the movie, Dory has “short-term memory loss,” a fact that she often repeats to other peeps, er, fishes whose help she would seek in trying to find her parents. It was only many fish-years later that she began asking herself, “What would Dory do?” upon realizing that she has been on her own all these years, trusting her gut instinct and her heart while saying, “Keep on swimming,” the advice that she does remember, if only she could also recall who gave that advice to her.

I also have short-term memory loss. Could be due to lack of sleep aka no more tulog. Thus, as I write this, I forget that the column’s deadline is near. Hehe. Gotta e-mail this. Now na.