THERE are many things I came to hear of the notorious business long before I came to hear this “drug war” hereabouts. The very first was that of opium. Together with that term were invariably the words “Insik” and “Tsina” or “Kainsikan.” My first boyhood trips from upland northern Abra to the lowlands brought me face to face with Chinese and their brisk business in Lagangilang and especially Bangued, the Abra capital town.
The first public utility vehicle I saw and rode on starting from Singit, Liccuan portion of the Abra-Kalinga Highway was driven by a Chinese, named Udak by my Aunt Binay or Angngit to whom Udak gave preferential attention because she always had more than enough money to pay for her fair and of her wards. She was a widow of the late Sergeant Jaime “Alunday” Bagayao, who died in action as a lead mortar man in the fierce liberation battle of Lallu, Cagayan. He did not die instantly. He succumbed to tetanus infection of the wound inflicted by a Japanese sniper that monitored the smoke of Bagayao’s mortar guns. As a known sharpshooter with his cal. 45, he sent the enemy sniper ahead of him to kingdom come.
People with whom they came to live by reason of their business seemed to look down upon the Chinese merchants but these did not mind the show of disdain. They pleasantly called their regular customers suki (friend) all the time and encouraged new customers to be suki by words and behavior. Very humble they were, so very much appreciated by the timid Tinguian highlanders who themselves were discriminated as Itneg (non-Christian pagan).
To the surprise of it all, we heard of stories about smoking opium related with the Chinese or China but really never saw one smoking the plant or its products. What we saw at home were the Chinese porcelain plates of various designs, the precious wine jars like the Ming and another more precious one as often mentioned by the late Professor Crespillo of SLU, and, of course, the gansa gong among the more wealthy families. A second surprise to me was that the talked-of opium-smoking was always ascribed to men, never women. So not much attention was paid to the effect of habit-forming illegal drugs to society except the President, who, to show his displeasure, permitted the law to follow its course on illegal drug supplier named Lim Seng.
Then came Marijuana that became practically a status symbol among the children of more wealthy families. Drivers of public conveyances and members of the media said it made them resistant to sleepiness, thus “very helpful in our job.” Media workers enjoyed the euphoric effect that made their imagination more fertile. Performers on stage became less inhibited to show their wares.
My coming to Baguio deterred me from observing what was starting to deluge the big city of but did not prevent my dismay upon seeing the inevitable onset of synthetic ones terminating in silvery concoctions that people call shabu, the most potent poison of them all. Marijuana days even surreptitiously infiltrated the ranks of men in religious garb.
I observed one or the other of such laughing decisively on her Mother Superior, something unthinkable among nuns ahead of hertime. Have the bishops adverted to that, our friend Bishop Soc? The worst is when, because of money, even those given power to hold the gun to maintain peace and order. Protect life and property, followed the not-so-jocose saying “If you cannot beat ‘em, join em.” The nation was really going to the dogs, was succumbing to illegal drug’s addictive virulence. The artificial produced pestilence has to be cured. The ordinary traditional medicine has to give in to some drastic means of stopping the advance. A super-antibiotic is needed. That is where we are now and to which secular government in responding in the preferred way it knows.
(To be continued)