MANGKOKOLUM!

Mang Pablo, a 62-year-old proprietor of a hardware store in Infanta town, Quezon province had the drive, the money savvy and the hopes a-soar that his business—including the Calabarzon region where he plied his trade—will take the high gear to prosperity. He was brimming with such an attitude back in 2008… until depression hit him.  He just lost steam. He was looked up to as a community leader but he for no reason lost his touch, his lust for life. Now he says it’s no use to overexert because he’ll just lose it all. He took to drink, ran into problems with his wife and their children. So what ate him?   In another case that Dr. June Caridad P. Lopez cites before the plenary session of the Philippine Psychiatric Association’s midyear convention, a gaggle of company employees and their families went on an outing in Puerto Galera. At sea, their boat capsized—four women and a child died as a result. The survivors will have to cope after that mind-wrenching tragedy. How? ...

T HREATS, threats, threats... and I am also being threatened to be the take-charge-guy over 125 hectares of rolling terrain like this.... such threats, such burdens of responsibility haven't even caused me to wince, flinch or even blink... I sure do the Demon Hand of wuyiquan but there is the too-evident Hand of God nudging me to parlay the skills I have gained, and the gifts I have been endowed with at birth.... Lord, I am thankful! Threats... threats... threats... I have been threatened being sent to the navel of the the Philippine geography spread to, uh, do agricultural extension work... in those parts where warlocks and witches and wizards like me can share notes a nd knowledge, I am being sent like a dragon among wolves... uh this bit of word operates in those parts where a friend has been chosen by his town mates as their representative in Congress... that friend went into the night and left friends (or fiends like me) can carry on his mandated tasks... God...