When Hope is All You’ve Got
By Piero Panganiban, contributor
People back home say we overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are lucky we don’t have to live the grim realities of the all-out war against drugs. That there’s no chance we would wake up to murmurs about another man shot dead just around the corner.
But come to think of it: What if that man shot dead just around the corner was a brother of an accountant working in Dubai?
Liz* could barely sleep at night, worried that the name of her 36-year-old brother, who had been a drug user for the past decade, could be the next to crop up on the list.
“Hindi malayong mangyari eh. At hindi namin kakayanin,” Liz said. He had been into it for far too long, she added, only the heavens knew how wide and how dangerous his network had become through the years.
“I know I can’t just sit here and wait for a call about him getting killed. It’s so hard to be away.”
Liz’s brother Bert* has yielded to the Oplan Tokhang in their barangay in Nueva Ecija, took the perfunctory oath and went home as if nothing happened. “Tapos na, hindi na ’ko gagamit. Ayoko pang mamatay” was all he told his mother.
The family couldn’t count on empty promises and cold assurances — especially now that the situation has become a matter of life and death.
Liz did what they thought was Bert’s only chance. She flew home several weeks ago to bring him with her to Dubai.
“I must admit it is tough call, especially considering the high cost of living here. Pero mas kaya naming kayanin ang gastusin kaysa kung ano pang mangyari sa kanya,” she told Popped.
The plan is for Bert to work odd jobs to keep him busy all throughout the day and for him to secure an employment visa. Salary was the least of their concerns as Bert said it was “just a bonus.” After all, he doesn’t have his own family to provide for.
“Maayos na rin ang ganito. Para akong nag-rehab dito eh, tapos may kikitain pa kahit papano,” said Bert, a quiet man who looked a little too old for his age. He’s not alarmingly skinny but he is thin for a man who stands five foot tall.
Bert said he wasn’t ready to tell me the story of his life and that the only thing he was ready for was the new life ahead of him.
The United Arab Emirates has a strict, zero-tolerance policy against drugs. The police has always been on a drug watch, with undercover officers at work round the clock. Raids, buy-and-bust operations make the news, so do thousands of foiled smuggling attempts.
Traffickers are brought straight to jail. They face trial and if proven guilty, they would have to serve their time. Unfortunately, there are at least 66 Filipino drug convicts in Dubai, who are serving life sentences.
“’Di hamak na mas mahigpit dito kaysa sa atin at tsaka may sistema. Naniniwala ako na Dubai is one of the safest places where Bert can start a new life,” Liz said. Bert just nodded, and smiled.
He knew he was lucky to have been shown a way out of the netherworld he had known for the past 12 years. He considered himself saved from the spate of killings that had already seen some of his ‘friends’ dead.
“Sa totoo lang, hindi naman ako siguradong hindi ako mamamatay eh. N’ung nasa Pilipinas pa ko, pinaghahandaan ko na lang ’yun,” Bert said. “Utang ko sa pamilya ko ang pagkakataon na ’to.”
He’s right. Family is key in addressing a substance abuse problem, in deciding to quit the habit, break the chains and get out of the loop.
I should know. I grew up in a family whose men were mostly drug users — five of seven immediate uncles, to be exact, and my dad included.
A quiet childhood
I was seven when I finally figured out what my dad had been doing with his friends whenever they locked themselves up in a room of our apartment.
The routine was easy to remember: friends and brothers would come over, dad would ask me to buy Serg’s* chocolates.
He would unwrap each one, keep the foil and hand me all the chocolate bars.
I forgot how I learned exactly what he does with all that foil and how it’s connected with drugs. Too much TV, perhaps? I guess I’m just a really good observer.
I did not have a violent childhood like how families of drug addicts are usually portrayed in the media. It may not be as exciting as yours but it was a quiet childhood.
Most of the time I kept things to myself, I don’t ask questions but I learn the answers along the way. Tsismosa eh, but quiet.
It was during those difficult times that I learned to do things on my own.
Mom was at work and my dad, who was then in between jobs, would spend almost the entire day in that room. Dishes would pile up in the sink; somebody had to wash them. My younger brother would spill a bag of chips; somebody had to sweep the floor.
I never hated my dad for it. Shrugging it off, I thought that was his thing like how work was mom’s.
There was only this one time when I invited two of my friends over. We were at the living room and dad suddenly emerged from the room, glaring at us.
“Wala ba silang TV sa mga bahay nila?” he said, apparently angry. I froze, didn’t know how to respond and when I turned to my friends, they had already scampered away.
That was the only time I didn’t understand him. I treasured every good day he would make time to tell us jokes and silly stories, do my math homework, or take us out for a random Jollibee lunch.
Breaking free
One sober day, dad brought home a 50-gallon aquarium, a pair of goldfish, an angel fish, and a parrot fish, along with other tiny ones. He would clean the aquarium every week but the fish kept dying, except the parrot fish. He would replace the dead ones in a day or two.
As he kept himself busy with the aquarium, pot sessions became less frequent until there was none in weeks, months. I would often catch him slumped in his chair, staring at the parrot fish in the middle of the night.
Dad started looking for a job — he found one and it took him to Saudi Arabia. I was 11. I am now 25, and he remains an OFW up to this day.
For a while I thought I had the aquarium and the parrot fish to thank for whisking my dad away from meth. But as I have read from his letters, they were merely tools that kept him preoccupied. It was family that drove him to turn his life around.
“Living alone in this foreign land is difficult. My heart breaks every time I realize I can’t be with you and our angels. But I need to do this, not just to secure our future but also to finally and totally turn my back on drugs, for you, for our angels,” one of his letters to my mom read.
When I looked at Bert, I couldn’t help but feel excited for him. I know in my heart that he has made the right decision to come to Dubai and get better — for himself and for his family who never gave up on him.
I am certain: There is hope for drug users, abusers, even pushers. I have seen it happen right before my eyes so I absolutely don’t understand why some people now think these people deserve to die.
Can you imagine being a wife of a drug addict these days? How she fears for her husband’s life every time he steps out of the house? If only these families can get the help they need to deal with the problem.
My uncles, the loving men who took care of me when mom and dad were away, are still back home and I have no idea whether they have already cut all their ties with the trade. I’m sure dad worries about them, too.
At the moment, we are left with no choice but to hope they don’t get killed.
*Names were withheld upon the author’s request.
