Think about it
Fast, total action needed
By Jun Velasco
“ Decision and perseverance are the noblest qualities of man,” Goethe
YOU get a tug in the heart.
And you can’t explain what’s it all about that stabbed you, like an old ache, a wound perhaps, or a memory whose sudden comeback conjures great feelings… yes, these, when you saw on Facebook that your favourite crooner, Andy Williams, has just died at age 84.
Oh, yes, he was an old man alright, but he struck us as a young “dream maker,” a weaver of love and romantic thoughts.
We had the opportunity to meet him, shook hands when he blew into town at the Araneta Coliseum. We, together with son, Chip, were seated a seat away from Toting Bunye, and two seats from General Joel Goltiao, and our Knights of Rizal partner, former QC councilor Jorge Banal.
Many insist he was better than our all-time favorite Frank Sinatra, his contemporary, but that would depend on one’s own taste.
Suffice it to say that we were able to hand over to him thru a waiter our requested song, “The Love Story,” which he so generously obliged and drew lusty applause from the audience.
With his demise, Andy Williams followed the paths of Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Matt Monro, Perry Como, Dean Martin and the others who have made our summers and romantic days indelible affairs to remember.
Goodbye, Moon River singer, and thanks for the memories.
* * * *
If you’ve been following the columns of Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Bebot Villar in the Punch, you can’t help but admire his single-minded and powerful focus, which is to rid the province and the nation of the drug menace.
A noble and timely passion because the Philippines is fast emerging – if it has not overtaken – Columbia as the drug lair of the world.
As if guided by the axiom “charity begins at home,” his straights and wallops against the dreaded substance in his columns are stern warnings against on drug dealers, pushers and addicts to evaporate or else! This, Sir Bebot does with irrefutable courage and authority being the top man of the DDB.
Those in the campaign quote social scientists as tracing the root of the prevalence and pervasiveness of crime to two outstanding factors: poverty and drugs. And the heinous ones are due to drugs!
We used to be a consultant on a Manila-based drug rehab center, from where we learned that drug dependents have a completely different reading of reality! They see their grandmother as the curvaceous Marilyn Monroe or their parents ugly gorillas, and their friends blood thirsty Frankensteins.
Which is so because, as former Judge Victor Llamas, author of two well researched books on illegal drugs, observes, drug addicts have deranged minds.
It’s therefore in order that TOTAL action be waged against the menace, just like Mayor Benjie Lim’s declared drive which has so far bagged a few pushers. The drive has lately found a powerful ally in Congresswoman Gina de Venecia who probably felt embarrassed by nonstop reports that her own Barangay Bonuan Binloc has been identified as a pushers’ haven.
Gina, by the way, has been receiving accolades for her haven for battered women, one of which is located in Barangay Binloc. On top of this, a new facility, a drug and alcohol rehab center, has also lately risen in that barangay, thanks, too, to her and hubby, former Speaker Joe de Venecia.
Consistent with her persona as maker of famous movie stars, Congresswoman Gina must have envisaged Bonuan Binloc as a “heaven on earth,” which, alas and alack, is being obliterated by the enemies of society.
Let’s retrace the path to Gina’s Haven.
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