Ground Views and Random Thoughts

President Duterte has famously said, “My God, I hate drugs.” As a pharmacist, I couldn’t agree more. Pharmacists do take it literally because of the large number of drugs in the market that have to be memorized and studied, especially now that there is a continuous manufacture of new drugs. To the layperson, a drug is a substance that can treat, cure, mitigate, or prevent diseases. An illegal drug is any substance that is prohibited by law because it is known to have psychoactive effects and addicting potential. Illegal drugs are not prescribed by a physician or bought from a drugstore; they are unlawfully sold in streets and other places with corresponding code names such as “shabu” for methamphetamine hydrochloride or “MJ,” “weed,” or “chongki” for marijuana. ADVERTISEMENT Actually, many legal drugs are psychoactive and can cause addiction as well. These include the sedative-hypnotics, the antiseizure drugs, the anesthetics, and others that target the brain. The...

I am an assistant professor at a university somewhere in U-Belt in Manila. And because I live in the province of Bulacan, each time I make my way to work very early in the morning for a 7:30 a.m. class, I pass through four major roads in the Metro—Quirino Highway, Commonwealth Avenue, Quezon Avenue and España Boulevard. I leave the house no later than 5:15 a.m. in order to spare myself from nerve-wracking traffic jams augmented by major road constructions along the way. But in that long and exhausting trip, there are things that I feel fortunate and privileged to experience. These are the strapping sights and sounds of hard work of the Filipino people, those who wake up before daybreak to get themselves a living. From the gate of our subdivision I can hear the tricycle driver shout, asking me to take a ride when in fact all I ever want to do is walk as my personal form of exercise. But that makes me wonder: Am I his first passenger of the day or the last passenger of his night...