While a lot of our critics like to claim that we here at GRP are “negative”, I need to question them about their own perception and just what being “negative” actually means to them. As of late, we have been getting more than the regular comments and arguments against the way we like to criticize the current administration even though most of these commenters aren’t even willing to share their thought-out insights on why our criticisms are wrong. Most of the time, all we get is people who want us to shut up because they don’t want to hear what we have to say and not because they find anything wrong or erroneous with what we say.
Well, I got news for you people. Do any of you understand how illegal narcotics work? Yeah, you heard me, drugs. Do you know how detrimental they can be and how they can so easily destroy a person’s life and career? Bob Ong even wrote a story about narcotics and their victims in McArthur, which I think should be a must-read for people who want to get a better view of the shadier parts of Pinoy society, the parts that the government and media don’t want you to see. Well then, if you still can’t put two and two together, allow me to spoonfeed it to you just the way you like it. After all, one of the reasons telebasuras make so much money and are so in demand is because of how simple they are and, even when they aren’t, the production team goes to great lengths to explain things away even when real-life professionals will tell you that what they do in these shows are both wrong and misleading.
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Okay, first things first, to the addicts themselves, drugs seem like a dream come true. While certainly expensive and will certainly deplete one’s livelihood, they are more accessible than a degree in school or a good position in a job. The last two require a lot of time and hard work to achieve but drugs are easy. All you need is money and voila, you can have a few moments of utter pleasure and nothing else. Narcotics makes its victims “feel good” to their detriment, preventing them from ever saving money to support themselves, poisoning their bodies with excessive use and destroying their social lives because of how it detaches them from reality.
As for those people who care about them, those people trying to save them from their addiction, life becomes a living nightmare because of their dependence on the brain-destroying substances they consume. More often than not, addicts are quick to defend their bad habits, claiming that what they are doing is harmless and just for the purpose of recreation. Other times, they embrace the high that narcotics gives them, claiming that it is better than whatever real life can offer them. When called out, criticized or subdued, addicts will violently protect what they believe to be the best thing that ever happened to them. They would kill to stop people from taking their precious narcotics away from them or to get enough money for their next fix.
Rehabilitating junkies is a lot harder than it sounds. It takes months to years for people to heal from the damage done to them by their addiction, both physically and psychologically. Some of them never make it and are so badly damaged that they may require treatment for the rest of their lives. Then, there are those who never even have the opportunity to be rehabilitated as their habit finally kills them.
So how are typical Pinoys and drug junkies similar? Do I need to spoonfeed my points again? Oh well…
It’s About “Feeling Good” All The Time
Okay, there’s nothing wrong with feeling good from time to time. I have been called out on being an escapist every now and again and I make no move to deny it. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having fun every now and again when you have the time. The old saying “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is quite true after all.
However, as both ChinoF and FallenAngel note in their articles, there should be a limit to the “good feels” that people seek out. When called out, many Pinoys resort to the idea “We just want to be happy!” even though their happiness may come at the cost of other’s well-being and even their own.
Partying is okay I think, but we have to remember that we all have lives to return to. We all need to work to make a living, we have families to take care of and we have to go with our friends through their own difficulties as well. A Russian friend once told me that a smile means more for a person who knows a good reason to smile.
Hatred Of Critics
This is probably one of the most obvious traits I’ve noticed in both Pinoys and junkies. When called out on their habits, they are both quick to defend themselves, assuming that the person questioning them is “judgmental” or “negative”. However, when asked to support their claims, they are all too often at a loss to put together coherent arguments against their critics. In fact, time and time again, both Pinoys and junkies will resort to threats and violence when criticized further.
Criticisms are always painful but they’re part of a “learning experience”. If we only “react” to criticisms instead of “responding” to them the way a dog bites someone who steps on it rather than a human who takes the time to consider the situation, then how far are we really from just being animals? Without criticisms, we will never know where we go wrong and set ourselves up for the same mistake again.
A Lack Of Foresight
The thing is, planning ahead is important if you want to have a good future. Unfortunately, most Pinoys and junkies only think of the “now” rather than “tomorrow”. Tying in with my first statement above, I have time and again met typical Pinoys who will gladly trade a good tomorrow just so they can feel good in the present. It’s no different from the way a junkie loses all his money to buy narcotics instead of saving some cash for the opportunity to improve his life.
I HAVE RETURNED TO LAY WASTE TO OUR ENEMIES!
For the sake of argument, let’s just say that there is a specific personality type where the focus of the persona in question does not go along the line of logical reasoning. These are the “approval-seeker” people. Their only goal and motive in whatever they do is to get as many “likes” as possible. For example, creating juicy gossips to tell the neighbors make people like them (or at least make it look like that.) Exaggerating one’s achievements and making sweet-sounding yet implausible promises also seem to do the trick. And so does entertainment, dressing nicely, conforming to what majority of the people wants, listening to friends’/family’s bad advice just because they are friends/family, etc. Heck, even posting nonsense quotes and sharing useless articles in facebook does that for them. The Filipino culture of “hiya” and “family is the basic unit of society” is rooted in this. I’m pretty sure when you look around you and think of our country’s problems, you will realize that a lot of our country’s problems are rooted in this approval-seeking mentality.
And because of this mentality, sharing opinions that contradict to what they’ve set to believe in make them feel “unaccepted” and “unliked”. The term they use – “negative” – is not, in a logical sense, what they mean to say. They just use that word because they don’t have anything better to call things that makes them feel “unappreciated” or “unloved”. They don’t use logic, and thus asking what logical grounds they have at hand to label simple facts of life as “negative” is really asking the wrong question to the wrong people. Oh by the way, approval-seeking is the same root of pinoy pride, “inggit”, (‘they have something I don’t have therefore I feel unloved…to make myself feel loved I will xxx and yyy) social climbing, nepotism, etc. in a very similar way.
Now guess how many percent of our country are like this…
Recreational Drugs are sought by people, who want to live in their World of Make Believe. They are Escapist; they cannot face their realities. So, they turn to these Recreational Drugs, to feel good.
It is the same for Filipinos, who during elections, will have fun on political candidates who: give song and dances “giling-giling”, to attract votes;give, freebees; give false surveys , showing they are winning; distract voters from the REAL Issues and Problems of the country; have no platform/plans/visions, but have : “guns, gold and goons”…and paid Media People to promote their candidacy…
Immature people need a fix of these recreational drugs. Mature people , do not need them.
We have not matured as a people…so, our way of life, culture, way of thinking, political system, elections, etc…are all dysfunctional…
Link
Drug harmfulness is the degree to which a psychoactive drug is harmful to a user. Drug harmfulness is measured in various ways, such as by addictiveness and the potential for physical harm. More harmful drugs are called hard drugs and less harmful drugs are called soft drugs. The term hard drug is considered controversial by its critics because it implies that all the hard drugs cause severe harm.
The distinction between soft drugs and hard drugs is important in the drug policy of the Netherlands, where cannabis production, retailing and use come under official tolerance, subject to certain conditions. The Dutch Opium Law have two lists of drugs, List I and List II, that are colloquially considered to be lists of hard and soft drugs, respectively. Other countries typically have more than two categories. For example, the US has five schedules in the Controlled Substances Act, ranging from one through five. The UK has three classes in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971: A, B and C.
Link
The drug policy of the Netherlands officially has four major objectives:
1.To prevent recreational drug use and to treat and rehabilitate recreational drug users.
2.To reduce harm to users.
3.To diminish public nuisance by drug users (the disturbance of public order and safety in the neighborhood).
4.To combat the production and trafficking of recreational drugs.
By contrast, most other countries take the point of view that recreational drug use is detrimental to society and must therefore be outlawed. This has caused friction between the Netherlands and other countries about the policy for cannabis, most notably with France and Germany. As of 2004, Belgium seems to be moving toward the Dutch model and a few local German legislators are calling for experiments based on the Dutch model. Switzerland has had long and heated parliamentary debates about whether to follow the Dutch model on cannabis, most recently deciding against it in 2004; currently a ballot initiative is in the works on the question. A new law came into force in the Netherlands requiring people to have membership cards to gain entry to coffeeshops, these cards are only available to residents of the Netherlands who need to apply for the card, (known as a ‘weed pass’) this was promptly adopted by several provinces including the cities of Maastricht and Eindhoven, there were proposals for this to apply to Amsterdam in 2012, although after fierce opposition from the Mayor of Amsterdam and many coffeeshop owners in Amsterdam the Government decided to allow the individual provinces to determine their own policy, of which Amsterdam rejected the membership cards and therefore the entry to coffeeshops and the sale of cannabis remains permissible to anyone over the age of 18.[2] By test, a few coffeeshops in the south of the Netherlands were already forced to handle this new law. Residents are complaining about growing criminality problems due to drug dealers in the streets.
If seen to fruition, which seems likely, the new laws will reduce tourism in the Netherlands dramatically and cost the exchequer millions in lost revenue and well-established business are forecast to go bankrupt. The club owners argue that the previous law opened the door for other European nations with relaxed attitudes on cannabis to capitalize on the niche in the market and take the valuable tourist resource. Maastricht’s association of coffee shop owners lost in June 2012 in a Dutch court a legal challenge of the new rules against the city’s mayor. Amsterdam has decided to not enforce the new law and will continue to sell to tourists.
In the last few years drug tourism and certain strains of cannabis with higher concentrations of THC have challenged the former policy in the Netherlands and led to a more restrictive approach; for example, a ban on selling cannabis to tourists in coffee shops suggested to start late 2011. In October 2011 the Dutch government proposed a new law to the Dutch parliament, that will put cannabis with 15% THC or more onto the list of hard drugs. If the law comes into effect, it would prohibit “coffee shops” from selling cannabis of that potency. The government finds motivation from its experts’ assertions, that cannabis of that strength have an “unacceptable risk” associated with its usage.[citation needed] Today, about 80% of the “coffee shops” sell, among their products, such kind of cannabis.
While the legalization of cannabis remains controversial, the introduction of heroin-assisted treatment in 1998 has been lauded for considerably improving the health and social situation of opiate-dependent patients in the Netherlands.
Just from the title, ID Not read the rest BUT NOT ALL FILIPINO’s ARE BAD AND NEITHER ARE ALL JUNKIES BAD. (In fact, In Vancouver,B.C. there are places so called ‘junkies’/heroin user’s can go and they are given clean needles and medical staff are on hand if the ‘junkie’ takes too much & OD’s.They have such places in North Eastern Europe as well, these places are a little more progressive thinking societies than the Fail-ippines and their ‘Uncle’s’ country.These countries think it is better to not spread AIDS than put people in jail and spend tax payers money to keep them locked up there, SMART: if you think about it.)They are just labels to ID certain types of what human beings think other human beings are.BUT, they are all just human beings.
99% of people who take drugs are recreational users who will never become addicts.
I was born in the drugs capital of the U.K everyone tried drugs. People from all age groups and all walks of life.
U.K deaths 2013
114,000 tobacco is an extremely addictive drug responsible for 20% of UK deaths, a 10-year reduction of average life expectancy and 40% of all hospital illnesses.
Alcohol 40,000
Heroin 700
Tranquilizers 406 prescribed by doctors
Cocaine 214
methadone 206 prescribed by doctors
Solvents 50 purchased over the counter
Amphetamine 35
Ecstasy 27
Barbiturates 20 prescribed by doctors
Alcohol and tobacco 154,000 deaths a year and legal.
Illegal drugs 976
Prostitutes are recreational users, too. In the Philippines, majority of rapists and sexual abuser are drug addicts. Some notable massacres here are done by drug addicts, too.
and where did you pull that last part out of, your ass?
Chill out and smoke a fat joint and tell me how many massacre’s your going to commit.You are full of shit with that one buddy.
Nah. Ikaw na lang mag-adik but do it for recreation purposes only so you can still tune in the local news.
If a photographer takes a picture of a negative subject, whatever that may be, of course, the picture will show negativity. The photographer cannot be judged, however, as positive or negative. He is just the photographer, period.
When you do great things, think as if you missed the mark by an inch; walk as if you are yet to face the greatest task; talk as if you are yet to have the best preparation for the momentous moment and dream as if you are fighting a battalion of tasks.
When you’re comfortable and content with who you are, the voices of others who try and define, control or direct you are not important.
The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.
Often those that criticize others reveal what he himself lacks. When speaking to an asshole, why expect anything but shit?
it seems that the temptation to indulge and dawdle in pleasurable activities that get serotonin going and make us feel good is common to us all, but to want to stay in that state for good seems indicative of a stunted state of development.
we only want to linger on for a little while more but the unintended consequence of that is that it will cost us more to linger and dawdle than the pleasure is worth, and so the dawdling and the lingering will keep diminishing the pleasure but at the same time increase the craving.
mature folks know when to get off the merry-go-round – as in the John Lennon song “Watching the Wheels Go Round” – but some just don’t know how, or seem to care much any more.
Personally, I have my doubts about the euphemism “recreational drug” – seems like another oxymoron straight out of cognitive dissonance and into invincible ignorance, like ‘therapeutic’ abortion and ‘assisted’ passage (euthanasia or ‘mercy’ killing).
Reality is so much more vibrant and alive just as it is.
Why, as Shakespeare put it, ‘gild the lily’?
I think it’s just that social media/network let loose of warfreak and primitive Pinoys. As they are not use to following rules and because they’re not really results oriented, they say things not caring if what they said will result from something good or bad. The good thing about social media is that we see Pinoys’ true color shining through and people can work on improving it once they get the point of your concern.
Dear Grinwald,
shouldnt you be more concerned and worried about the increasing number of HIV/AIDS cases in the Philippines???
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2015/06/07/editorial-hiv-proofing-youths-411880
Editorial
8 Jun 2015 Sun.Star Cebu
HIV-proofing youths
With many colleges and universities starting the semester today, there’s a need to repeat key messages that will protect and save many young lives. Don’t be pressured to have sex. If you can’t abstain, have protected sex. If you had unprotected sex, be tested for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and be helped.
Jump
The number of new HIV cases continues to rise in the country. In March, the Department of Health (DOH) reported 667 new cases. The record was the “highest ever recorded since the first case of HIV was reported in 1984” in the country,” according to The Philippine Star last June 1. Compared to the same period in 2014, the new cases reported in March 2015 were 34 percent higher. Last April, 560 new HIV cases were reported, a 42-percent jump from the 393 cases documented in April 2014. Central Visayas, which includes Cebu, was one of the regions with the highest number of HIV cases in March. The 68 cases in Central Visayas accounted for 10 percent of the new cases in March. Region 7 had the third highest cases, next to the National Capital Region (293 cases, representing 44 percent) and Region 4A (92 cases or 14 percent).
Biases
As alarming as the rising number of new HIV cases is the stigma that prevents persons living with HIV from seeking assistance. Since 1984, when the country reported its first HIV case, unfounded fears surround HIV and its full-blown stage, acquired immune deficiency syndrome (Aids). According to the National Aids and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Prevention and Control Program of DOH, many people still perceive that HIV/Aids is highly communicable. There are only four ways to transmit HIV/Aids: sexual intercourse, sharing of needles, blood transfusion and mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy. HIV/Aids is also not a disease sent to “punish” homosexuals. According to the DOH, 547 of the new cases reported in April were sexually transmitted. Homosexual contact accounted for 295 cases; followed by bisexual contact, 182; and heterosexual contact, 70 cases. There were 12 cases of intravenous drug users sharing needles, and one case of mother-to child transmission, according to the DOH. Fifty of the new cases of HIV transmission through sex involved overseas Filipino workers.
Stigma
The DOH should work with stakeholders like schools, nongovernment organizations and youth organizations to clear up misconceptions persisting among youths, one of the most vulnerable. Aside from addressing the lack of correct knowledge about HIV/ Aids, a public education campaign should focus on correcting the attitudes and behaviors that drive up the number of new cases. Misunderstanding creates unfounded fears. People ostracize people living with HIV/Aids, driving them to drop out of school or work or leave families. Instead of moralizing and judging, members of a community should encourage those who have had unprotected sex to volunteer for HIV testing in the country’s testing centers. Needing also wider dissemination is information that the government gives free antiretroviral drugs, which weaken the virus. The drugs help the immune system recover, allowing people living with HIV to live longer and delay the full development of HIV into Aids. For in-school youths, colleges and universities offer trained counseling and peer guidance to address varied concerns with sensitivity and confidentiality. Online campaigns can reach out to the confused and socially isolated.If schools can hold fire and earthquake drills, why not create an appropriate mechanism to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids, as well as the ignorance and stigma that are as threatening as the virus to public health?