VIEWING the weekend show “Maalaala Mo Kaya” (MMK) of a giant TV network is not my cup of tea. But last Saturday evening, my roommate peaked the volume of her TV in between ads to catch my attention about the episode.

The story was about a boy whose elder brother was hooked to drugs; and out of curiosity he was drawn to taste.

His father died when he was a boy. The setup was typical in every Filipino family that when the breadwinner dies, the surviving spouse becomes desperate with all struggles to earn for living. I can tell the same story being fatherless at an early age. I even told my roommate, I will never present my life story to MMK with the anticipation that perhaps the actor will undertake many heartbreaking moments.

The story goes, and he went on beyond the nose of his mother until he got married.

From a taste of little meth, it made him a habitual user and eventually turned him a pusher, until it became his means of living. His resolute spirit in many instances was always dominated by the needs of his family with eight mouths to feed. No matter how he tried to resist, poverty pushed him to commit the same mistake. Until one day he was busted and jailed.

We have been in an all-out war against drugs for about four years. In fact Marawi City being suspected of having “shabu” laboratories and nested by terrorists was pounded with bombs in 2017 and many innocents were displaced until today.

Recently, raids and buy bust operations in Mindanao pointed Marawi City again as the source of illegal drugs. And many drug surrender in Davao region including those who availed the plea bargaining are backslidden to this old practice of peddling illegal drugs.

A sad thing to note that in the President’s homeland where tokhang originated, packs of illegal drugs amounting to more than P700 thousand, tucked in the vegetable supplies delivered for the inmates in Maa City Jail.

Worse, a woman carrying a baby, held at the vicinity of the Hall of Justice in Ecoland, Davao city for inserting illegal drugs in some pieces of choco-lanay supposedly to be given to an inmate attending a hearing of his case on that day.

With the above situations, there must also have an all-out war against poverty in parallel to the war against drugs. For without the genuine program to combat poverty, many starved Filipinos will still risk their lives in peddling drugs regardless of the consequence.