Shabu for kids

RECENTLY, law enforcers have intercepted sachets of shabu in the possession of an arrested pusher with one curious difference: the substance was colored green to make it appear like a pandan-flavored candy.

Last week, a 14-year old boy peddling shabu was arrested in a buy-bust operation by Dagupan police. Early this year, a 15-year old was arrested under the same circumstances.

Early this year, The PUNCH was in receipt of an information from a resident of Sta. Barbara that drug pushers (one of whom is a policeman) have started to operate inside public elementary schools. Their target: the P2 baon of schoolchildren for a fix of shabu!

Indeed, the schoolchildren, supported by their parents with ample cash for baon and transportation, are vulnerable targets and the drug syndicates know this too well. A kid who is suddenly exposed to mature habits can view it as an opportunity for bragging rights to his/her peers, and will likely keep it as his/her dark secret away from his parents. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the bragging rights for P2 easily make a drug addict out of the young in no time.

It is imperative that the police, school officials and parents-teachers associations in all schools in the province to become more vigilant and take more pro-active measures, particularly to be on the look-out for drug peddlers among the students.

The drug syndicates are clearly no longer simply targeting our young teens but our schoolchildren.

 

Muhammad Ali

 MUHAMMAD Ali’s most famous lines are “I’m the greatest,” “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” and, “I ain’t got any quarrel with ‘em Viet Cong.”

Ali, 22, shouted “I’m the greatest” as he stood over the fallen body of deposed world heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in their 1964 bout in Miami, Florida.  He would be that until his demise on June 3 due to Parkinson’s disease complications.  He was 74.

Ali’s “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” was both a mental and a physical weapon.  His adviser Bundini Brown gave him that mantra, which Ali used in winning 56 of his 61 fights, 37 by KOs, in a career spanning almost two decades.

When he dodged the 1967 US military draft to fight in Vietnam, he said, “I ain’t got no quarrel with ‘em Viet Cong.  They never even called me ‘nigger.’”  He was sentenced to 5 years in prison, fined $10,000 and, worse, stripped of his title.  But in 1970, he won more than redemption when the US Supreme Court voted by a unanimous 8-0 to free Ali.

Ali is not only the greatest fighter of all time, he is also—by the reckoning of the 8 American magistrates—the most principled athlete of all time.

The one who could top that had remained unborn.

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