Change has come

Lopez

I remember when I was first invited to write a column more than seven years ago.

It was March 2009 and I was in Ozamiz when three newspaper editors who’ve since become my very good friends invited me to write a column for a different paper.

I was so hesitant that it took me three months to say yes, and yet another three months to actually start.

Throughout 2009 to 2010, I’d be in Ozamiz for at least one week every month for close to a year for a series of talks and town hall pulongpulongs in different secure locations to campaign for change and an end to narcopolitics that’s gripped the city for over two decades.

Through TINGOG Carolinian, our campus political party in the University of San Carlos, we launched the “I am A Hope Warrior Caravan” that’s brought us to different parts of the country to talk about lessons on hope and change. Suffice it to say, Ozamiz was the most dangerous leg of our caravan.

In other parts, we spoke only to students, to the youth, but in Ozamiz, we reached out to other sectors like women and the elderly, urging them to fight back and retake their city from the evil clutches of corruption and the narco trade.

We stepped up our game when we supported a candidate who dared to face the Parojinogs.

The candidate was my best friend Erik’s mom, and I saw in her the passion, determination, and courage to take them on — to the death — and that was inspiring enough to get me on board, the dangers notwithstanding.

With a brave candidate and a people desperate to make a difference, you’d think that’d be more than enough to effect change through the electoral process, noh? Alas, those were not.

Candidate Connie Lim garnered over 80 percent in all surveys, but come May 2010, the Parojinogs triumphed with their guns, goons, and gold. They had their armed men intimidate teachers and poll watchers on election day.

Some of the people we worked with, those who bravely fought with us, have since been killed. Only last year, the vice mayoralty candidate we supported, Roland Romero, someone I gave pointers to in public speaking, was gunned down in broad daylight.

Drugs is a personal issue for me. I started my anti-drug advocacy as a volunteer of the Cebu City Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (Cosap) and later on, with PhilOSAP, at the age of 13 (I am now 34).

We were primarily focused on advocacy, spearheading various activities from poster-making, essay-writing, extemporaneous and oratorical speech contests, and even Miss Drug Week competitions.

Throughout the time, I wondered if all these were exercises in futility, if they actually helped people stay away from drugs. Then again, we all have a post to man and we do the best we can wherever we are at a given time.

Later on, when I was in government and I collaborated with the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) as chairman of the National Youth Commission’s Committee on Health, I continued to doubt the effectiveness of these activities in curbing the drug menace.

To my mind, it all boiled down to law enforcement and political will in going after the drug lords and protectors so we attack the problem from its source.

Sure, the drug problem has a public health component to it, as Vice President Leni Robredo insists. But when you do an MRI on the brains of a drug dependent, an alcoholic, and a gambler, you would see a similar predisposition to addiction.

So what I’m essentially saying is, while we continue with the advocacy of disseminating information on the effects of drug addiction and while we continue setting up rehabilitation centers for recovering dependents, we must have a leader who can exercise political will on law enforcement so it trains its sights on the source of the supply of narcotic drugs.

In the meantime, post-2010, the Parojinogs were still in power and drug trade flourished under Noynoy Aquino. I started writing a column where I regularly attacked the sad and pathetic leader for his hubris and hypocrisy.

Facebook became another effective medium to critique the bachelor’s monumental mediocrity.

Fast-forward to 2017, Noynoy is no more, Duterte is president and he’s made good on his promises, thus far: the Parojinogs have finally fallen. Truly, change has come.

Also, I am back from my two-year hiatus from column writing — and this time, as part of the Inquirer Group.

Here, like on my mumunting television talk show and my Facebook account, I guarantee that I am (like I’ve always been) the same “very open Mike.”